Searching for hapiness (Attack On Titan X Fairy Tail Crossover)
by Limone3000
Summary: For years, talented magician Levi Ackermann traveled the countryside alone, until he decided to join the famous Mages Guild Fairy Tail. There he is initially considered a loner and has a hard time making contacts until he meets a very special person. Can Fairy Tail help him end his past and see life differently? (Attack On Titan X Fairy Tail Crossover)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter I

It was a day like any other, at least it seemed. The sun was just at its zenith and beamed brightly down to earth. Leisurely, I walked along the paved path that led me directly into the city. The closer I got to her, the more people I met .They were all in a good mood due to the warmth and the beautiful weather and gave the surroundings a very exuberant atmosphere. I had hardly entered the city, because there was a very different feeling around me. People bustled around the streets and alleys in good spirits, and at almost every corner there were booths where many people stopped and looked at the displays. Many others would probably have called such a day "beautiful" or "wonderful" and enjoyed the boisterous mood in this city, but I had not paid attention to such things for a long time. Maybe it sounded heartless, but I just did not really have a sense for it, but to be honest, it did not bother me much. For a long time I had not experienced any nice days and I was pretty sure that would not change that soon.

Leisurely, I walked through the streets of this city. The houses were all built of stone and many of them were adorned with colorful flowers , which helped to improve the dull gray of the buildings. Finally, on a wide street, I came to a large square where one of the city's landmarks stood. I was right in front of the imposing Kardia Cathedral, which stood at a tremendous height very far from the normal houses around it. It was completely made of stone and large impressive windows decorated the sides of the building. The condition of the cathedral was impeccable and even I had to admit that the sight was quite impressive.

From here it was not far to my destination, so it had been assured me at least by some people that I had asked for directions on the way. So I left the cathedral behind me and plunged back into the narrow streets and alleyways, passing in between a channel that ran across the city and in a short time actually had my goal in the nose.

For a moment I stopped and looked from a distance to the big stone building at the end of the path. It was quite high and the rooftop of the tile roof loosened up the gray colors of the stone walls. Countless windows and small ornaments adorned the façade, and at the top there was a sort of tower with a mighty imposing bell that flashed brightly in the sunlight. Around the building there was a stone fence that demarcated the property and directly behind it, the sea had to begin. At least you could hear the sound of the waves and the screaming of seagulls. Just below the belfry was a large orange flag with a white emblem on it.

Well, since I was standing right in front of this building, I wondered a bit about myself. Why exactly had I come here ? I had endured it alone for years and was coping well , but deep inside of me I had always felt this for a community and belonging to it. The feeling of finally having another place to return to. I had buried all these longings deep inside of me, telling myself that I would not need all this. The truth, however, was that every person needed a home and even though I still could not really admit it to myself, I needed those things to find myself again.

Sighing, I sat down again and walked towards the archway, which was connected to the stone fence. In large dark letters there was the name of the most famous and notorious guild in Fiore: Fairy Tail.

As I walked underneath, I shook my head again. Why this guild? I had asked myself that question again and again and again and again came to the same answer. Of course I had heard many things from other guilds too, but Fairy Tail seemed to strike me as a strange magnet. Just as if I felt that I would not find my way in any other guild except this one. It was strange to rely completely on my gut feeling, because otherwise I did it almost never. But I needed employment and belonging again, I kept arguing, as if to confirm myself that I was doing the right thing.

Without thinking about it, I laid the last few steps back to the big brown wooden door and pushed it open with a strong swing.

When I entered, I stood in a large wood-clad hall. Numerous tables and benches lined the room, where many people sat and talked with each other laughing. Behind it was a wide bar, behind which stood a pretty white-haired young woman smiling and serving the people. Right next to it was a broad table with a number of notes on it. Probably all the orders , I thought, letting my eyes wander around the room. Through the many windows, a lot of daylight shone in and dipped everything in a gentle and almost cozy atmosphere .

Some heads of the audience turned to me and eyed me in surprise. I looked into a few faces, but avoided giving a big welcome speech. I just wanted to speak to Master, more was not interested at the moment. Slowly I passed through the room and was well aware that many looked after me and looked at me questioningly. Silently, I made my way between the tables and benches and finally stopped in front of the wide bar. The woman behind the counter was a few years younger than me and looked curiously at me out of big blue eyes. She wore a light red dress with a pink bow in front of it and her long hair flowed down her shoulders in soft white waves. For a moment she looked a bit puzzled, but then gave me a big smile as I came to a stop in front of her. From close up, she was even prettier and sure she had some admirers here, I stated matter-of-factly, when I looked at her, but did not return her smile.

"Welcome to Fairy Tail.", She cheered happily and crossed her arms behind her back, "Can I help you maybe?"

Monotonously, I just looked at her and ignored her friendliness. " I would like to talk to the master. Is he in the Guild right now? "I told her and saw how she got a bit shaken by my repellent way.

"Um ... yeah, he's here," she replied, but held up her big smile , "he just went back, but he'd have to be back soon ..."

"Hello! Who are you, then? And why do you want to speak Opi? ", A striking voice suddenly boomed behind me and interrupted the young woman while talking. Amazed, I turned around and faced a young man. He may have been about the same age as the woman and had showy pink hair. He was wrapped in dark black clothes and was wearing white pants. Despite the warmth, a checkered white scarf was wrapped around his neck and he looked at me with a cheeky grin on his face. He was taller than me and seemed to be well trained. It seems a strong and impetuous young man.

"That's probably my business," I muttered, looking into his dark eyes. Stunned by my answer, he cocked his head and crossed his arms.

"But at least you'll be able to tell your name, right?" He said, his grin dying. I studied him a little further and when I did not answer immediately, he continued.

"So I am Natsu. I'm glad. ", He said and I had to admit that it was amazing that he still treated me so friendly. For a moment I kept looking at it before sighing and giving in. It would be stupid of me if I would separate myself from the others right from the start.

"Levi." I said curtly to him and he began to grin a little more. He was probably triumphing inwardly that he still had my name.

"That's a funny name," he said with a grin and my expression darkened immediately. Grimly, I gritted my teeth and took a step toward him.

"What's wrong with that, please?" I growled threateningly and Natsu's smile died instantly. He slightly pulled his eyebrows together and looked down at me.

"Now do not be so upset ... I just meant that ...", he said calmly, but from the corner of my eye, I realized that he was easily in a lunge position and actually looked ready to fight.

"Ah, master! There you are. ", Suddenly the bright voice of the woman behind me," Here is someone who would like to speak to you. "Gritting my teeth, I turned away from Natsu, after all, I did not want to face the master of this guild with one of the Create members.

"Oh, that's a surprise," said a small old man, who was suddenly sitting on the counter next to the young woman. A white, thick mustache graced his face, and only on the sides of his head , above his ears, did he have hair on his wore a light cloak and looked at me kindly from watchful eyes. His features were rather pithy and distinctive, and despite his small appearance, he exercised some authority. So that's Master Makarov of Fairy Tail, I'm a bit surprised by his appearance.

"What can I do for you, young man?" He asked gently and I crossed my arms as I stepped in front of him.

"My name is Levi, Master Makarov." I said to him, trying not to sound too dismissive, "And I would like to join Fairy Tail."

As I said this, I heard Natsu coughing behind me in surprise, and the woman behind the bar, too, puzzled her head for a moment. So they probably did not expect such a request.

The master now looked at me carefully from head to toe and just sat in silence for a felt eternity. "So," he finally said, looking me straight in the eye, " Basically, anyone who appreciates the community and the family is welcome."

I made no expression at his words and just kept looking at him stoically. Sure, I was not a family man, and I had usually struggled with other interpersonal relationships too, but at the bottom of my heart these things meant something to me. However, I would never really pronounce this and so I simply trusted the old man's judgment as to whether he judged me worthy of the Guild or not.

"Well ... why not?", He said and suddenly grinned again cocky, "I have a good feeling with you and I believe that you will enrich our guild."

I had to admit that I was a bit surprised by this reaction. I had expected all sorts of things, secretly preparing myself to persuade him to accept me, and now he simply nodded my request? A really quaint old man, but it certainly had his reasons for being the master of this famous guild.

"Thanks," I managed curtly and Master nodded benevolently to me, before he grabbed a mug from the counter and my business for him apparently was now ticked off.

"Well then, once again officially welcome to Fairy Tail." Again, the woman behind the bar spoke up and put already a small brown case on the table. With quick movements, she opened it and produced a kind of stamp showing the emblem of Fairy Tail.

"By the way, I'm Mirajane.", She said smiling and beckoned me closer, "Where would you like to have your guild sign?"

Frowning, I walked slowly straight to the counter, so I stood directly opposite her and silently stretched out my right arm. On my forearm at the level of the wrist, she gently pressed the stamp on my skin. For a moment I looked questioningly at my arm when suddenly the guild sign appeared in a turquoise hue. Well, it was a done deal, I was an official member of Fairy Tail. But a little reverently I looked at the sign for a moment before I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, no offense because of that," Natsu said next to me, grinning at me, "And welcome to Fairy Tail, Levi."

4


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II

"Happy! Give me that again!", I heard the voice of the blonde Lucy and sighted softly. Probably that blue cat had once again played some trick, I thought, squinting across the room. I sat at one of the outer wooden tables, in front of me a steaming cup of black tea, and looked over at the others. As I had guessed, the little blue cat flew around the room with a black whip and Lucy ran after him furiously. The two of them were among Natsu's closest friends, I noticed, and they were almost all together.

It had been a few weeks since I joined Fairy Tail and now knew just about every member a bit. Of course, on my first day here, Natsu immediately pulled me along and made a personal impression on almost everyone, first and foremost of course his best friend Lucy and the talking blue cat Happy. It had not bothered me that Happy could speak and even fly, because on my travels through Fiore I had met cats like him before. Then the strange Gray came in, who took off his clothes again and again in a matter of seconds and did not even seem to notice. I still wondered if he did it on purpose or just suffered from a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"Happy!", A commanding voice roared through the guild and briefly tore me from my thoughts. Erza Scarlet, the magician in the armor, had appeared and waved the blue tomcat out of the air with a wave of her hand. She was different in some way, because she was more serious and settled than the others. Also, I had to admit that she really was a strong and talented magician and even used a similar magic as I did. You could talk to her on a good and businesslike level, but still I did not really get warm with her.

Anyway, I had not met anyone yet in the Guild that I could really say was good with. Sure, they were all polite and friendly to me and had welcomed me with open arms, but I just had not been able to stand it any longer with anyone. Most of the time they were too loud for me, especially Natsu and Gray, whose conversations almost always ended in a fight.

Slightly absentminded, I ran my finger across the table and eyed critically the faint and greasy layer that stuck to my finger and grimaced. Someone should wipe the tables properly, I thought grumpily and took a sip of my tea.

"Are you just drinking tea?", A bright voice suddenly laughed next to me and without turning my head I glanced aside. There sat a brown-haired young woman and grinned cheekily at me. As always, she wore only a bikini top and of course had an almost emptied wine bottle in her hand. I sighed softly and looked back at my cup.

"Cana.", I said and wondered what she wanted from me again. Cana came to me more often in the evenings and tried to persuade me to drink with her every time because she thought it was inhuman to drink tea as a man. However, I had to admit that it really was amazing how much she could handle. This petite and pretty woman was able to drink a whole barrel of wine and walk upright after that.

"Come on, have a drink with me.", She laughed and slapped me lightly on the arm. Now I turned my head to her and looked directly at her, but I made no move with it.

"Don't you have someone else you can annoy with your alcohol problem?" I asked her and she gave me an indignant look.

"I do not have a drinking problem!" she countered, narrowing her eyes slightly, "But it's about time we both finally lift our glasses together."

I sighed again and took another sip of my tea. I could not imagine that there should be a better drink than black tea.

"How do you even drink?", She asked with a chuckle and I gave her a questioning look as I put the cup down again. She nodded at my hand, which still touched the cup and grinned slightly.

"I've never seen anyone hold a cup without using the handle. Is not it uncomfortable to hold the cup from above on the edge?", she chattered and I had to pull myself together, not just to get upset. Granted, it might be a bit odd how I held cups, but I just could not handle grabbing a cup by the handle and lifting it up like this.

But I avoided answering her chatter and only gave her a cold look. But today she was somehow even more intrusive and persistent than usual and did not want to part with me.

"Fine,", I finally muttered to her after a eternity in which she was always annoying me, "Then just give me something.". Actually I had decided to stay hard, but she got on my nerves so much, that I only had to flee forward. Cana gave me a big smile as she put two beakers filled with beer in front of us and triumphantly gushed at me.

"Have a nice evening," she said enthusiastically and put the cup to her lips to drink it in one go. With a raised eyebrow I watched her and shook my head imperceptibly. Deep down, though, I felt my fighting spirit awake. She was too sure of her, that was clear. After all, she was considered to be the strongest drinker in the guild and so far no one had been able to give her enough water, at least Mirajane had told me that. So if she really wanted to, she should have her competition, I thought as I emptied my cup on a train.

"Oho. Not bad, Levi. ", She said approvingly and beckoned to Mirajane, who showed up immediately with supplies, "But I'll bet you'll collapse after only a few cups. ". I snorted condescendingly and looked at her bored.

"As you say ...", I told her and put the next cup to my lips. With a wicked grin on her lips she also drank her drink.

At some point I stopped counting how many cups I had already poured into myself and in time the others noticed what Cana and I were doing there and watched us with growing enthusiasm. Anyway, by now it had been at least an hour since we started drinking and had poured beer into us non-stop.

I looked at Cana next to me, who was emptying another cup and looking at me with dim eyes.

"You wil ssssee. I ...will win. ", She lolled and blew me a considerable alcohol flag. Although she was sitting, her upper body was already swaying threateningly and she chuckled more and more silly and squeaking to herself. Silently, I looked at her and sipped at my mug.

"If you say so ...", I told her and put the cup just emptied on the table in front of me. Our observers watched us with open mouths, apparently because they could not really understand what was happening right in front of their eyes. While Cana was struggling to stay upright at all, I barely felt any of the alcohol I had poured in huge quantities.

"Yeah ... I'm saying, " she said before her upper body slumped forward and hit hard on the table top. There she paused, and then very softly began to snort away.

"Impossible," I heard some whisper. "Nobody has done that yet," someone else said. "Is he even a human being?", another threw in the round.

"My goodness," Mirajane laughed as she cleared the cups from the table and gently patted Cana's back, "I think she will not be able to handle that for a long time.". She gave me a friendly smile and I leaned back and crossed my arms.

"How did you do that, please?", Lucy asked me slightly disturbed and could not avert the view of the completely drunken Cana. I just shrugged and just longed for a fresh cup of tea.

"Call it drinking, if you want it," I told her, because I did not know it myself. No matter how much alcohol I drank, I just did not get drunk, but I did not know what that was. Probably just a bit of drinking resistance was innate to me.

"A true man can handle a lot.", the grumpy voice of Elfman roared through the guild. Inwardly, I sighed because he was, in my opinion, one of the weirdest members of the Guild. He was the younger brother of Mirajane and managed to incorporate a reference to masculinity into just about every one of his sentences. Probably an obsessive-compulsive disorder as well, like this pull-out fetish by Gray.

"Should not we rather put her to bed?", someone asked in the round and I was glad that attention was now more focused on getting the drunken Cana home safely. After a short time I sat alone at the table again, Cana had been carried away carefully and silently I had got myself a new cup of tea.

As I sat there, I looked around the room again. It had been a strange experience to be so central all of a sudden and I could not say that I really enjoyed that. Actually, I was even glad to be able to sit alone again. But as I looked at the group of Natsu, Lucy, Happy, Gray and Erza, something stirred in me. Sure, I found them all a little bit weird, because they were always so excited and sometimes they behaved a little bit thoughtless, but no matter what, they kept together. You immediately felt the tight bond that existed between them and as I watched them laugh and have fun together, I felt a heavy bump in my heart. I knew how such a connection felt, I knew this feeling all too well and that made it almost more unbearable for me to see these young people there so carefree.

"Levi.", her voice echoed in my head, "He said again that I'm stupid."

"This is really a fact that you can not deny.", haunted his voice as a counterattack with my thoughts. "That's not true!", her voice had rocked higher and higher when they had this argument. "Oh yes? And how much is 18 plus 22? ", he had laughingly asked and looked at her with folded arms triumphant. With wide eyes she had tried to answer the question but had spent too much time on it and finally turned to me for help.

I shook my head briefly to banish that image from my head and stared at my cup, gritting my teeth . Since then, I had not felt that sense of belonging, had severed my heart from all things and hidden deep within me. To see exactly such a togetherness right in front of me was harder for me than I had thought.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter III

" Oi Levi," a voice muttered to me. Bored, I looked up and put my cup down in front of me. With folded arms and a nasty grin on his face, he sat opposite me at the table, Gajeel. His long black hair was even wilder on his head today and the metal rivets on his face seemed to shine even more than usual.

You could not say that we had become friends, but I had the feeling that he was the only one in this messy bunch, with whose way I could get along well. He was pretty serious, like me, and in a way we resembled each other. Except when Gajeel lived out his hobby. A few times I had seen him playing his self-composed songs on his guitar and every time he did that, I wanted to kick my foot right in his face because his music was just horrible.

"What?", I asked and drove briefly through my hair. If he wanted to persuade me again to start a band with him, then I would really kick him in the face.

"I think she's on you, buddy." he grinned, nodding his head to one side. I followed his movement and saw Cana sitting at the next table, waving to me with a bottle of wine.

"Since you drank with her, she can barely keep her eyes off you. Gihi. ", grunted Gajeel and wiggled his eyebrows. Without a response, I averted my eyes from Cana and studied Gajeel piercingly.

"Yeah, sure.", I said and snorted. Of course, I also noticed that Cana now more often in my presence, but I was completely cold. Although this was not the right expression for my feelings, it felt rather embarrassing, but of course I would never say that out loud. Even if I could allow romantic feelings, she would surely be the last woman I would do anything with. She was way too loud for me, and besides, the amount of alcohol she consumed was pretty disgusting. Cana smelled like a whole brewery and tha was really unacceptable.

"I see," Gajeel grinned, "She's not your type.". That was the end of the conversation, which I certainly did not regret. We did not have to talk for hours, there were a few words that were changed and that's it. Scarce and uncomplicated. I grabbed my cup again and was glad that I could enjoy my tea again relaxed when suddenly loud noise rang out behind us and I stopped in my motion.

"The two idiots again.", Gajeel growled annoyed and I did not have to turn around to know what was going on behind my back. In all likelihood, it was Natsu and Gray who fought each other. I snorted annoyed. Those damned brats, I thought gruffly, why can not they even pull together?

Behind me was the bursting of wood and loud shouts. In between, one could repeatedly make out word fragments like "Ice Princess" or "Flame Brain" , mixed with screaming calls of a woman, probably Lucy. The fight sounds andt he calls became louder and louder and the other guild members were getting a bit restless.

"Can not somebody separate these two?", I heard some voice. "Just today Erza is not there!", whined another and with a soft sigh, I rose. Gajeel looked at me in surprise as I left our table without comment and turned to the action.

Natsu and Gray both looked pretty tattered and pulled each other's hair as I walked towards them. Tirelessly they cursed themselves with the most unusual insults and became louder and louder. They did not realize it when I stood right next to them.

With full speed, I rammed Natsu my knee into the pit of his stomach and missed Gray a fierce blow with the fist in the same place. With a loud gasp both went down at the same time and painfully kept their bellies before they looked up at me, rather stunned. With a cold look, I looked down at them as they lay at my feet.

"What's the noise?", I growled exasperated and I could see in her eyes how surprised they were.

"What the fuck, Levi?", Natsu squeezed out groaning and still holding his stomach, but I could see exactly that his anger was boiling. Without batting an eyelid, I nailed his head roughly with my feet firmly on the ground, so he gasped again surprised.

"You're annoying.", I grumbled and snorted slightly, "Stop it now.". There was silence throughout the Guild, for they all stared at us. Probably no one would have thought that someone put between these two idiots, but if they annoyed me, I had to do something about it, it was that simple.

"We're already quiet," said Gray grumpy now and slowly got up, but without me out of sight. Slowly I took the foot of Natsu's head again and folded my arms across my chest, then alternately reprimanding them both.

"And clean up this mess here," I snapped irritably, glancing briefly at the mess that had arisen from their fight. Shards of broken plates and jugs lay on the floor, drinks and food had been spilled and they even managed to break one of the wooden benches. The two of them subtly withdrew and really set about cleaning up immediately.

"He's almost as scary as Erza," I heard Natsu hiss, but I avoided responding. Then, at least, he was aware that I, like Erza, would not tolerate them beating each other's heads. All right, they could do that outdoors, but not when I just wanted to drink my tea. Without paying any further attention to them, I went back to my table and sat down opposite Gajeel, who grinned slightly at me.

"Not bad at all.", he grumbled and leaned back relaxed, "Tell me next time, if you go on the two, then I'll go with you.". I just nodded to him, but doubted that I would really do that. That would degenerate too fast in a group brwal, if he would also be involved and I really had no desire for it now . Silently, I finished the rest of my tea and then went to the request board next to the bar. Mirajane gave me a faint smile as I ran past her, but I did not respond. With folded arms, I then stopped in front of the large blackboard and studied the orders. It was time again that I earned some money and getting away from this noisy environment for a while was certainly not a bad thought.

Briefly, I let my eyes wander over the various posters before I took one of the notes. It was said that there was to kill a beast that had been terrorizing a village for weeks. It sounded like an easy task, I thought to myself, and told Mirajane that I would do the job. She smiled and nodded to me and without another word, I left then the Guild to prepare myself for my n tomorrow's departure.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter IV

Far too short, I thought with a snort. The assignment had taken much less time than I had thought. The beast that had bullied this village had been just a too big boar. Of course, I had to admit that it had looked pretty frightening because of its abnormal size, but that was all. It had only taken me a few minutes to finish this cattle, and the villagers had nonetheless celebrated me as an unsurpassable hero. I snorted again at the memory of how they had stoodaround cheering and pretending that I had accomplished a wonder of the world. I was a little uncomfortable with that attention again and I was glad when I finally got my reward and then disappeared there.

Now I was on my way back to Magnolia. The city was not too far away, so I decided to walk. It also did a pretty good job of running around alone and not being surrounded by noisy people all the time. After a while I strolled through a dense forest that looked unusually calm. I heard hardly any sounds of animals or the splashing of a stream. Even the gentle wind sounds were almost completely swallowed by the mighty trees and immediately my hair on the haunches stood up. I had always been able to rely on my instinct, which was probably one of the reasons why I had been able to get along so well for so long alone. And at that moment my instinct told me something was wrong. The forest was too quiet, too inanimate, but I just could not find a reasonable explanation for it.

I carefully appraised my surroundings and slowed down a bit. Every muscle in my body was tense, ready to react at lightning speed. My footsteps became slower, until I finally stopped and looked around with a faint foreboding. I had lived on the street too long to be unaware of what was going on.

Suddenly a big man burst out of a thicket not far from me screaming and lunged at me with a heavy ax. He was a lot taller than me and had a weather-beaten face that was already covered in countless scars. His body was bursting with energy and his scuffed and ragged clothing hinted that this man was certainly not doing honorable and legal work.

Skillfully, I jumped a big step back and escaped his attack, which apparently made him a lot more angry. Now he stood in front of me snorting and held his ax again in the air. From big dark green eyes he stared at me hostile and exposed a series of slate yellow teeth.

"No movement, midget!", he growled at me and my eyes darkened immediately. Who called this bastard here a midget? Shortly we were both completely motionless, each fixed the other with his eyes, when I suddenly heard noises behind my back and quickly turned my head. Behind me appeared three similar figures, like the one in front of me, each with a different weapon in his hand. With malicious grins on their faces, they looked at me and seemed to believe that they had light prey.

"He could dodge your swinging ax? Is it as nimble as a weasel, the little one?", one of the three muttered to my counterpart and now I began to growl softly. They would pay for calling me like that.

"The main thing is that he has something valuable about him.", another squeaked, confirming my suspicion that I was dealing with bandits here.

"Certainly, but now he does not seem to know what to do.", my attacker laughed dirty and my head shot back to him and I pierced him with my cold eyes. Briefly, he looked into my gray eyes and I thought for a tiny moment to see something like confusion in his face when he saw me standing so dogged in front of him.

"Believe me, I know exactly what I have to do,", I growled, darting sideways in an elegant jump roll. Immediately the four bandits set in motion trying to guess where I would jump next, but I stopped there.

"Blade incantation!", I exclaimed loud and determined and stretched out my arms to the sides. At the same moment I already felt the cool grips of two weapons in my hands and threateningly looked at my opponents. They came shortly to a halt when they saw that there had been formed out of nothing two narrow blades in my hands. Both of these blades were almost as long as my whole arm and were extremely narrow and sharp-edged. A thin dark brown handle at the end allowed me to touch them without cutting myself. Just right, to inflict a few nice injuries on these lousy bandits, I thought grimly, still staring at them hostilely.

"Holy shit! Is that guy a magician?", one of the four exclaimed, looking desperately at his cronies .

"So what?", thundered the one who had attacked me and spat disgustingly on the floor. How disgusting, I thought and had a great desire to slit him his stomch alone because of this action. "Some razors like those do not scare us off!", he went on and a little bit of fighting spirit returned to him and his companions.

" Tch.", it just snapped me off. So these four guys did not seem to be aware of what they were dealing with here.

With another loud roar, the huge ruffian who had attacked me first lunged at me and wanted to split my skull with his ax but I dodged again in a smooth movement. With a dull clink, the ax hit the ground, right where I had just been before. Confused, he grimaced as he realized I was already behind him but it was already too late for him. In a fluid and spinning motion, I rammed my blades into his hips, causing him to scream in pain and splash his blood.

"You should never underestimate your opponent.", I muttered in his ear, as he fainted beside me, half fainting. I was sure that I had not mortally wounded him but he would not be able to get up for a while. However, I could not guarantee that I could act so humane with his cronies.

The other three were staring at me wide-eyed and even trembling almost imperceptibly. My icy cold eyes whirled around and I paused for a moment to see what they would do. You should never take the first step, that was the first thing I had been taught when I was living on the street.

A ghostly silence formed around us for a moment, just facing each other and giving us hostile glances. Only the yap of the bleeding man at my feet was occasionally heard like a shiver.

"You ... you bastard!", one shouted at me and looked down briefly at his injured companion, before he growled at me angrily, "I'll finish you!". Come on then, I thought bored. Surely their combat skills were less pronounced than those of the man who was now lying in front of me, so they were not really a challenge for me.

This man attacked me now with two pointed short daggers, which he quickly swung back and forth. But I skillfully avoided any of his attacks and it almost looked like we were performing a kind of abstruse dance. He tried to give me a blow, I dodged, he started another attack, I jumped in the opposite direction. However, he came dangerously close to me, so that I could hardly do anything with the long blades.

"Blade incantation!", I therefore cried out again and immediately changed the long blades in my hands into the form of two peaks and dainty daggers that flashed silver and menacing in the sunlight. Distracted by this performance, my opponent dropped his cover for a brief moment and stopped in his movement, which of course I exploited. With great and expansive movements, I first added some deep cuts to his hands and arms until he was able to save himself at a distance from me. At that moment, his two other comrades also threw themselves into the fray, probably because they had finally awakened from their shock rigidity.

Three against one, what heroes, I thought cynically and snorted annoyed. The man, who now stood to my left, also swung a massive ax. The other had an elongated and delicate sword, which he had certainly taken on one of his raids. Almost at the same time they let their weapons fall down on me and at the last moment I ducked under them, but felt the sharp breeze just above my head, which was caused by the vibrations. In kneeling position I rammed my two daggers into the knee of the left man so that he jumped loud back.

I just wanted to turn to the man to my right when he was suddenly wrapped in a huge fireball. Fire? How was that possible? The man shrieked and staggered back a few steps before the fire vanished again, but still had some bad burns done to him. As fast as lightning, I straightened up and looked around as I could already see the source of this attack.

A few paces away from me stood none other than Natsu and now, grinning happily, put his hands on his hips and nodded to me. I raised an eyebrow in question. What the hell was he doing here?

"Damn Natsu! You should not grill them!", suddenly the voice of Erza came up to me and she appeared shortly afterwards behind him, with a rather grim facial expression. Immediately Natsu became noticeably smaller and looked like a beaten dog to her.

"I've made an extra effort to hold myself back.", he murmured meekly.

"Damned moron! Do you think we'll get the reward if we run them in pieces?", Gray now spoke as well, approaching Natsu's other side. At once, Natsu's eyes darkened and he glared at him belligerently.

"As if you would do better!", he grumbled annoyed, before Erza stepped between the two and they were immediately quiet.

"Shit! Do they also belong to this freak?", I now heard the voice of one of the bandits behind me and I turned my head. The one to whom I had made many deep cuts on the arms now stood bleeding and completely disintegrated in front of me, taking turns looking at his coarse comrades and the magicians who had just appeared.

"Let's get away from here!", shouted the one I had injured on his leg and with moaning and groaning sounds they tried to escape but did not get very far. After only a few steps, they were completely wrapped in huge blocks of ice and were unable to move. I glanced at Gray for a moment who was grinning contentedly. I was only surprised that he still wore his shirt.

"Friends! Why can not you wait for me?", I heard a fourth voice and sighed inwardly. Actually, I could have imagined that Lucy was involved, too, when these three chaotic guys showed up somewhere. Slightly out of breath, the blonde came to a standstill next to Erza and then looked in amazement at the sight of four ice statues and me in their midst in front of them.

"What are you doing here?", I grumbled, taking a few steps toward them to reduce the distance to the fours.

"We could ask you the same, buddy.", Natsu laughed.

"And what did you have to do with these bandits, above all?", Erza asked and for a moment her eyes fell on the two pointed daggers in my hands. I snorted briefly and then let my weapons disappear before I pulled a clean, white cloth from my pocket and began to wipe away the blood spatters on my hands and arms.

"I was on an assignment. And on the way back, I was attacked by these rascals.", I answered and discovered to my displeasure more bloodstains on my shirt.

"Looks more like you attacked them.", said Gray casually, as his eyes fell on the gaping wounds of the bandits and for a brief moment he looked as if he was actually afraid of me. He probably did not expect me to do that, I guessed.

"As long as they are still alive ...", Erza said, "Our mission is to capture this gang here.". Her gaze was still curious on me. I probably had drawn her interest in me because of the blades in my hands.

"You saved us some work with that, Levi.", Lucy flirted friendly and gave me a big smile, "Thank you.". I just looked at her coldly and said nothing. After all, it had not been my intention to help them, so no thanks to me.

"Then we can already return now.", the voice of the blue cat happy was to hear, which now emerged behind Natsus back. He probably had been in the background so far, so I had not noticed him yet.

"But we still have to look for Wendy. She wanted to locate the campsite of the bandits.", Gray said and was now upper body free in front of us. I rolled my eyes a little and wondered again how it was possible to undress in such a short time.

"We split up,", Erza said in command, "Gray and I are delivering these bandits and getting our reward. Hou guys, Natsu, Happy, Lucy and Levi go looking for Wendy. We meet again on the outskirts of Magnolia.". I shook my head in confusion for a moment. When did I join their strange club?

"Since when do you have the right to give me orders?", I growled a little gruffly. I instantly felt patronized for some unknown reason and could not stand it if she just dictated about me. Her menacing brown eyes shot at me and beside her I could see Gray and Natsu starting to shiver, though that cold look did not suit them. She stepped right in front of me and since she was a lot taller than me, she could easily look down on me.

"So you do not want to help us find our comrade, Levi?", she asked now, her tone slightly reminding me of my own. Without even showing any emotion, I looked up at her directly in her eyes. Probably she had not really noticed what a commanding tone she had just struck and seemed to take it for granted that the people around her simply did what she said. And, of course, I would not deny them my help, after all they were my comrades but I did not like how she took it for granted that I would immediately do what she ordered.

"I did not say that. Listen to me, Erza.", I muttered and could see out of the corner of my eye, as Gray and Natsu threw me glances that only wanted to express: _Are you crazy?_ "I just do not like the way you talk to me,", I added, realizing some astonishment in her eyes. Maybe she could handle the others like that, but not with me.

To my surprise, she gave a slight sigh and grinned weakly with a raised eyebrow. "You're right. Sorry.", she said, then turned around to face the ice blocks with the bandits. That was it? The people of Fairy Tail were all really moody. But I was not completely satisfied with the outcome of this conversation but somehow I did not feel like talking to her again about it and maybe even breaking a fight. I just wanted to go back to the Guild and the quickest way to get there was to help others search for Wendy.

Without a word, I joined Natsu, Happy, and Lucy while Gray walked past me with wide eyes to Erza. The other three looked at me a bit dumbfounded. Apparently they could not quite handle that I was just telling Erza my opinion and got away unscathed.

"Come on, brats. Or do you want to stand around here all day?", I grumbled to them as I stood next to them and then they broke free of their shock.

"Um, no,", Lucy answered and the three of them turned around so we could start walking side by side. Behind us, I heard Erza and Gray deal with the blocks of ice but after a short while those noises were barely audible.

Next to Lucy, Natsu sniffed in the air, leading our little squad in a way. By now, I had heard that Dragon Slayers, like Natsu, had an extremely good sense of smell and he was able to lead us to Wendy. Strangely enough, this name seemed completely unknown to me, but by far I had not noticed all the members of the guild, I had not much to do with most of them.

"Who is this Wendy?", I asked untypical for me, because although I did not want to admit it myself, I was curious to whom I would like to meet.

"Oh, right, you do not even know her because she was visiting Lamia Scale for a long time. She has a fried there, you know.", Lucy chattered happily and I had to pull myself together, not to snort annoyed. That did not answer my question in any way, I thought grudgingly, but forced myself to remain silent.

"She's also a Dragon Slayer.", Natsu explained more helpful as he continued to sniff in the air, "A Sky Dragon Slayer.". Astonished, I raised an eyebrow. So besides Natsu and Gajeel there was a third Dragon Slayer at Fairy Tail. But I did not ask for more, because i was not more interested in anything and so we walked silently for a while, until we finally came across a wide clearing. There were a few tents set up around an extinguished campfire and there were numerous barrels and boxes around which food had probably been stored. A petite person knelt in front of one of the boxes and examined her and beside her a small-fashioned cat was sitting in a red dress.

Another cat like Happy, I asked myself, as the person and the cat turned to us and jumped up joyfully.

"Oh, you're already here!", she called and only then I recognized that the person was a little girl. As she clambered awkwardly toward us, her long blue hair was blowing in the wind, which she tied to two side braids. Her childlike body was tucked in a green dress with yellow stripes on it and by age she was maybe 13 or 14 years old.

"Hi Wendy. It went faster than expected!", Natsu called to her grinning, while we also approached her.

But only a few steps away from each other, my breath suddenly stopped and I stopped dead in my tracks. When I looked into her face, the blood froze in my veins and I could not believe my eyes. At that moment, I did not know what to think or feel, because everything boiled up inside me. I saw pictures in my mind's eye, felt that anger again, the sadness, the helplessness. But there was also a hidden feeling of joy in me, which I could not fully classify. I could not think rationally and for the second time in my life, I simply did not know what to do and felt helplessly exposed to my stormy feelings.

From wide open eyes I stared at this girl in front of me stunned, because her face looked horrifyingly similar to a person only too familiar to me, not to say, it was identical with her. Suddenly seeing this well-known face in front of me made me completely disconcerted, and the thoughts and feelings that I had associated with this person all suddenly came up again and almost drove tears into my cold, gray eyes.

Because this person was dead for many years.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter V

 _"Levi?", she asked me and looked at me sadly from her big innocent eyes._ _Somewhat annoyed, I turned my eyes to her and snorted._ _She saw that I was busy cleaning, how could she dare interrupt me?_

 _"Well ... I found a book in one of the old boxes down in the basement._ _But somehow I do not quite understand the words that are in there._ _These are all so strange_ _words I've never heard of. ", she said, crossing her arms._

 _I sighed softly and raised an eyebrow._ _"Why are you coming to me with this?", I asked her, setting aside the broom with which I had just swept the floor._

 _"You're the only one right here,", she grumbled, glaring at me._ _She did not like it when I was always_ _so derogatory to her._ _"And besides, with you I'm not so embarrassed if I do not know something,",_ _she added_ _._ _Her determined look now turned into a pleading, almost uncertain expression, and once again I realized that she was much more worried about following the two of us in intelligence._ _My gaze softened slightly, and_ _I_ _sighed, louder this time and took a step towards her._

 _"What do you not understand?", I asked her, although I did not really feel like giving a lesson._ _Then a faint smile returned to her face and she conjured up a thin book behind her back._

 _"Well, a lot._ _Actually, the whole book. ", she exclaimed a little annoying about herself and I drove through my hair._

 _"Why do not you just take another book then?", I asked her annoyed._ _Sometimes she could be really stubborn._ _For a moment she gave me a scowl._

 _"Dumbass._ _Then I would never learn anything if I immediately put everything aside, which I do not understand.", she snapped at me and inside I had to agree with her._ _Where she sometimes lacked deliberation or intelligence, she made up for it again with her tenacity and willpower._

 _"Besides, I liked the front cover so much.", she said happily, holding it under my nose._ _On it was a blooming and colorful landscape with two persons, who were clothed only by a few leaves of a tree._

 _"Um ... where exactly did you get this book from?", I asked a bit confused now and a slight suspicion crept into my thoughts._

 _"Huh?_ _How so?_ _It was in a box down in the basement._ _Probably from the guy who used to live here.", she replied cheerfully, opening the first page of the book._ _I frowned in confusion, thinking weakly of the man who had lived here before. He had been a rather foul smelling and very unpleasant contemporary._

 _"Here, for example._ _The first word._ _", she said now slightly frustrated and looked at me, "There's something about the book, but I do not understand it._ _What is a ‚pornography'?"._ _Surprised, I blinked at her and stood for a moment._ _Where was this damned boy when you needed him?_ _I may have been the eldest of the three of us, but that's why I did not have to take sexuality education for the others._ _And why did she have to grab a book like that?_

 _"I ... think you should just take another book.", I tried to change her mind and for the first time did not really know what to say to her._ _With wide eyes she looked at me disappointed._

 _"What_ _? Why?_ _But I want this book._ _What is such a ‚pornography'?", She persisted and I scratched something embarrassed at the back of my head._ _Well, how did I explain that best now?_

 _"Oh, that's what you're doing when I'm not here.", suddenly his laughing voice cut the uncomfortable spot and inside I was glad for this distraction._ _Her head shot to the door and she ran to him._ _Good luck, I thought inwardly, as I watched him embarrassed to explain this book to her._

Why did this memory come to my mind right now? It had nothing to do with the current situation! But the look of that young girl in front of me was exactly like the one she had been doing when she enthusiastically asked me to explain something to her. The same joy and zeal.

This sight was just horrible for me. Memories and feelings that I had locked deep inside of me suddenly burst to the surface, reviving the pain within me.

This Wendy had almost reached Natsu and was stuck to a root on the ground in her last steps. She gave a startled squeal and if Natsu had not caught her, she would surely have hit the ground with full force. Just as she had sometimes been, it shot through my head and my body started shaking slightly at the sight of Natsu and Wendy. How she clung to his arm and he quickly helped her to get back to her feet. Like her and me back then, so many years ago.

"Hey Levi! What's wrong with you?", suddenly the bright voice of Happy said and I stared at him a bit perplexed. He floated right next to me and looked at me scrutinizing. "You're even paler than usual.", commented the cat now and just for that I would have liked to shoot him on the moon. I did not want to show any weakness. You should not see how agitated and torn I was internally.

"Levi!", Lucy called my name, " This is Wendy.". I looked over at her. She was standing next to Natsu, waving zealously at me. The girl between the two now crossed a little shy her hands behind her back. Carefully she smiled at me and nodded weakly with her head.

"Hello Levi. I'm glad to make your acquaintance.", she said in a cheerful, bright voice that sent a chill down my spine. She was like her in so many ways, the look, her way of moving, her voice!

I did not have the heart to greet her normally. I did not utter a single tone over my lips, so much did my vision disturb her. How could it be that a little girl made me so upset? Anger at myself rose in me and my own weakness disgusted me.

As if she were a lurking predator, I automatically took a step back and just continued to stare at her. What was wrong with my body? I should actually have better control!

"Um ... are you alright?", Wendy asked now and her eyes clouded slightly as she saw me react to her.

"Levi?", Natsu now asked and looked at me with a tilted head. Meanwhile, everyone here struck me with strange looks and seemed to wonder what had gone into me. I would like to know that myself, but actually I knew the answer. I felt as if I was facing a ghost, a much too lively ghost. How was it possible that she was so like her? That could not be a coincidence anymore!

"It's not very friendly. Acting in such a way to a girl is really rude.", a high and tender voice scolded me and my eyes fell on the white kitten to Wendy's feet. She had her thin arms crossed and stood up straight in front of Wendy to give me hostile looks.

Whether it was this cocky sound or the piercing eyes of the cat is unclear to me, but at that moment something made me wake up from my rigidity and slowly regain my clear thoughts.

"Hello.", I muttered finally, but I could not say more than that. It probably sounded rather half-hearted and gruff, but at least I had found my voice again. Quickly, I looked sideways at the camp to avoid looking into those familiar eyes and actually helped me to calm down a bit.

"We are complete. So let's go back now.", I said in a cold voice and looked briefly into the faces of Lucy and Natsu. They nodded both but looked at me confused, as if I had just grown a third arm.

I had to stay strong, I told myself. I should just ignore her, then I would be able to endure her presence. Silently, I turned around and heard them move behind me, feeling their questioning looks in my back.

All the way I walked a few steps in front of them, but I heard them whisper softly. But that did not really matter to me, just counting on me not to look at Wendy's face. After some time we reached the outskirts of Magnolia, where we were supposed to meet with Erza and Gray.

Now that all those feelings and memories had boiled up inside me, even the name of that city was a bitter sting deep into my heart, for that name, too, aroused hidden thoughts in me. I quickly shook my head to regain control of my senses and then stopped in front of two people who were at the roadside.

"There you are.", Erza said with a satisfied smile, but when she first looked at my face and then at the others, she immediately felt that something was wrong. Just when she wanted to open her mouth to say something, I came before her and walked past Erza and Gray with a grim face.

"Let's get back to the guild as soon as possible.", I mumbled, assuming the others would follow me.

It was not long before we were back in front of the Fairy Tail guild. I had the feeling that I had calmed down by now but had not dared to look over my shoulder and look at Wendy.

When we opened the door and entered, the master was already standing in front of us. With a satisfied grin on his face, he looked at us all and sighed inwardly. The way he looked, he wanted something.

"Ah ... there are my favorite scatterbrains again.", he said gleefully and I snorted off in pain, as he just counted me. Was I already such a chaotic for him? Stupid, old man.

"We're back, Master.", Erza smiled and came to a stop beside me. On my other side, Natsu and Lucy appeared, and I suspected Wendy and Gray were facing Erza's other side, but I avoided looking more closely.

"I've been waiting for you. There is an assignment for you.", said the Master, looking at each one.

"An order? For us? How so?", Lucy asked confused and I crossed my arms. Did I have to listen to this?

"Exactly. It is a special order. It was clearly demanded for the strongest team of Fairy Tail.", the Master now winked and around me they began to grin. Slightly bored, I now pushed forward and wanted to leave this collection to finally be able to have my rest, as Erza grabbed me by the shoulder.

"Where are you going, Levi?", she asked, tightening her grip on my shoulder. She grabbed rather hard and tight and it almost felt like she wanted to crush my shoulder but of course I did not show it.

"This is none of my business anymore.", I muttered in response as I turned my head to face her.

"But you're pretty strong, too. At least I feel a tremendous radiance of energy on you. Why do not you join us for a while and do this job with us?", she asked now and my eyes got a little bigger. She barely knew me and yet she offered me something like that? Deep inside, I felt a little flattered, but immediately my eyes darkened again. On an assignment that probably took a little longer, with these chaotic? No thanks!

"I think you can do it well without me.", I said dismissively, lowering my eyes, but her hand continued to rest on my shoulder.

"I also think that Levi would be a good help. The client, Erwin Smith, really wanted the strongest team.", Master commented on the event and I stopped.

"Erwin Smith?", I asked in astonishment, looking at the old man. He smiled happily at me and nodded.

"Correctly. Erwin Smith is his name. Why?", he hailed, but I just gritted my teeth bitterly. Today really did not seem to be my day. Too many events from the past seemed to catch up with me today. I stopped for a moment, breathing in and out a few times.

"Fine.", I muttered finally, "I will accompany you.". I saw a faint smile in Erza's face and she looked a little triumphant. She was probably thinking that her grueling grip on my shoulder had been the trigger for me changing my mind.

"Well then! Tell us everything about this assignment and we're off again, Master.", Lucy said happily and I sighed very softly. Since I joined Fairy Tail, seemed to me my past to be even closer and more painful than ever.

With a sad look, I glanced at the girl next to Gray. Wendy's eyes looked at me briskly and excitedly, hungry for another adventure and it was this sight that completely convinced me to go along with this mission.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter VI

Annoyingly, I crossed my leg over the other and crossed my arms. It took all my effort not to kick him in the head so he would finally be quiet. Not so long ago, I had intended that, but was stopped by an indignant and suddenly wild Lucy.

Damn it, I thought, gritting my teeth and looking out the window at the fast-moving landscape outside. If she had not stopped me just now, we would not have to listen to his whining right now.

"I feel soooosick.", came back as if on cue again the whiny voice of Natsu and I had to pull myself together again, not just kicking him. Gray looked similar to me. Just like me, he was annoyed by Natsu who whined continuously that he felt sick and that vehicles of all kinds must be devil's work.

A few hours ago, we had left Magnolia at the station and were sitting on the train ever since. Immediately I had placed myself at the window and luckily Wendy sat in the square furthest away from me. I continued to avoid looking at her, but of course I heard her happy voice as she talked to the others, which made the train ride more difficult for me.

"You made it soon, Natsu.", I now heard Lucy solicitously say to Natsu and cast a glance at the two of them on the bench opposite me. Natsu's head lay on Lucy's lap and she stroked his arm and shoulder with concern. She was the only one who was really interested in Natsu's suffering. Everyone else accepted it more or less without complaint. Next to me, Erza was sitting over a piece of strawberry cake that she had stolen from the trolley when he drove past us. So she was not accessible before.

Outside, the landscape changed slowly from green meadows and dense forests to brown farmland, which was occasionally crossed by a few rivers. It was kind of strange to know that I would see him again after all this time, I thought. Surely he would not expect me to be among the magicians he hired, but I already wondered why Erwin Smith needed the assistance of a Mages Guild. Deep inside, I even felt a kind of anticipation to see him again, but the feeling of fear weighed more heavily. I was not sure how I would react to being there again. In the place that I had left so quickly that I almost fled because I just could not stand it there. I would never have thought that I would return there in such a way.

After a while, the train finally stopped, having reached its terminus. Of course, no one was happier than Natsu and now I just wanted to kick my foot in his face just for his annoying laugh that the hell of train was over.

However, our trip was not over here, because from now on we had to continue on foot, because the estate of Erwin Smith was very far away. I used to think that was always an advantage, but now I did not think it was that wonderful, because that meant I was going to have a walk with these brats.

After leaving the town, we followed a steep path that led up a mountain. In front of me were Natsu, Happy, Lucy and Wendy. Behind me Erza struggled with her huge baggage car and Gray seemed to keep her company. I still wondered why she had so many suitcases with her. Which person needed a whole trailer of luggage?

As I walked in silence, my eyes mostly on the ground, Wendy's little white cat suddenly flew next to me. Astonished, I raised my head and looked into her reproachful face. From scraps of conversation on the train, I had heard that her name was probably Charle and in my opinion, this was a very snooty and exhausting kitten.

"Where is your problem?", she snapped at me without warning, but that did not bother me much. Bored, I raised an eyebrow and looked at her.

"What do you want, cat?", I grumbled annoyed.

"Are you happy with yourself now?", she complained and literally pierced me with her eyes. I rolled my eyes and looked forward again. If she wanted something from me, she should say it clearly. If she was angry with me, it did not bother me much.

"Why are you so mean to Wendy?", she continued, my head turning around. What did she mean? I had not exchanged a word with the girl at all! How could I have been mean to her? This stupid cat already seemed to fantasize.

"Leave me alone.", I growled, glaring at her, but she continued to look me in the eye.

"She thinks you do not like her.", she said in a cold voice, snorting slightly, "She really blames herself for that.". I firmly pressed my jaws together. Why did this stupid girl worry about that? She should not care. After all, I had avoided any contact with her, so why was she continuing to work on it? Why damn it? I felt my heart beat faster immediately and condemned myself for it. It was as if a pointed dagger would be rammed into my feelings. _But you like me, do you Levi?_ That's what she had asked me then. She also had at that time over there made thoughts and damn it, yes, I had liked her! At least as much as my messed up and cold heart had allowed me. And hearing such similar words ruined all my efforts to stay calm. And though I fiercely resisted it and did not even dare to look at Wendy, it somehow broke my heart that she blamed herself for an idiot like me.

"She should not think about that.", I grunted, but that did not seem to satisfy the white cat next to me.

"This is not an explanation for your strange behavior.", she reproached me and I slowly got the good pleasure to grab her and throw her as far as possible.

"As I remember, I do not owe you or anyone else an explanation.", I growled now and once again hid behind my gruff and aggressive nature. Now she seemed to realize slowly that it was close to me now dangerous for her and wrinkled her nose once again, before she flew back to Wendy.

I breathed weakly. This cat was really annoying, I thought, trying to regain the feeling of chaos inside me. Should it go on like this now? That only a few words were enough to mentally throw me completely off course?

After a while, we finally reached our destination, the estate of Erwin Smith. Everything still looked exactly like my memories. I forced myself to suppress all the feelings that I had associated with this place. To bathe again in mourning and self-pity would not do me any good, I kept telling myself to stay strong. Through a large stone gate we entered the huge property, which lay in a hollow between different mountains. Inside the estate, numerous trees and shrubs had been planted and a broad paved path led straight to the huge stone building. The house was already several years old, but was still in a very good condition. Everything looked very neat and tidy and when we stood in front of the long and wide building and looked up awestruck the cold facade, opened the large front door and a red- blonde young woman came out. Right at the first glance, I realized that I did not know her. So she had to be hired after me leaving this place. She was pretty petite and wore a tailored, light brown suit. Her hair hopped up and down as she came up to us with a big smile and stopped in front of us . She was a little taller than Wendy, but still smaller than me, as I noticed with surprise.

"Welcome. My name is Petra Ral. I am responsible for the household and therefore also for all visitors. I'm sure you are the mages of Fairy Tail?", she cheered happily and looked at each of us briefly. Seems to be a little cheerful nature, I thought a bit grumpy and crossed my arms.

"Right. We want to see Erwin Smith.", Erza raised her voice and walked towards the little woman, who looked up awed.

"Of course. Follow me, please.", she said and led us into the house. As soon as we entered the antechamber, this familiar fragrance rose to my nostrils. It still smelled lightly of lavender, I realized sentimentally and looked around. A splendid chandelier now adorned the high room and to the left and right led in each case wide wooden stairs to the upper floor. Other paintings hung on the walls than they did then, but they displayed similar motifs: landscapes. Most of them with a wide and blue ocean.

"This way, please.", the little Ral now said and like chicks of a hen we followed her in silence, everyone looked around and hung on his own thoughts. Of course, I already knew where we had to go. Up the stairs on the left, along the corridor and then the third door on the right, there was his study. I would have found my way there blindly myself.

 _"You are only now comming?", she grumbled at him as she_ _reached out_ _with_ _her arms crossed next to me._ _We sat behind the house in the shade on one of the benches and allowed ourselves a short break._ _She had made herself comfortable on the bench beside me and had her head down on my leg._ _Actually, I did not like it when she was so affectionate, but then she had looked at me from her big innocent eyes and I just could not refuse her anything._

 _He rolled his eyes, just pushed her aside a little so she had to sit up and sat down on the bench as well._

 _"Yes damn._ _I'm lost again._ _This house is just too big and has too many corridors and doors that look the same.", he grumbled, looking down at the floor a little ashamed._ _Next to me, she laughed brightly and clapped him on the shoulder comradely._

 _"Do not be sad._ _Next time, Levi and I will take you by the hand, so you will not get lost.", she laughed and seemed to enjoy that she could finally raise him._

How many times did one of them get lost in this building and how often had I had to look for them? I had given them endless lectures about that and until the end they had still not quite found their way around. Strangely enough, this time I did not feel a pang in my heart, as always when I thought back to events with the two of them. It felt more like a sad laugh fading away more and more.

When we actually stood in front of the dark oak door, which I had already crossed countless times, my heart began to beat a little faster. I was not sure what it would be like to see him again after all this time. Would he be pleased at all? I would not blame him if he reproached me and then chased me out.

Now, the little Ral just opened that door and let us enter. Together we entered the anteroom where his secretary lived. After all, she was still the same person as she was then. When the brown-haired woman looked up from behind her thin desk, which was filled with stacks of paper and books, a broad smile appeared on her face.

"No way!", she called in surprise and I sighed very softly. She got up momentarily and walked quickly towards us. The others around me stared at her in confusion, but I knew exactly what would happen and would have liked to run straight out of the room. As if the other people were not there, she just walked past them to finally drop me around the neck.

"Levi!", she exclaimed delighted and hugged me tight, so that I could hardly breathe, "I can't believe it. It's really you, you old sourpuss.", she laughed with all her heart and I had every effort to push her away from me. So she still had that stupid habit.

"You have not changed a bit. At most, you have become a little smaller.", she said cheekily grinning and put her arms on her hips. I snorted angrily. Did she really want to celebrate our reunion with her death?

"And you have not changed, too, Hanji. The word " _bathing"_ still seems to be a foreign word to you.", I grumbled angrily and let my eyes wander over her greasy hair. She had always been so busy working that she rarely had a bath. Inexplicable for me. How could you be so unhygienic?

"Haha. Old joker!", she said now untroubled happily and hit me briefly and vigorously on the shoulder.

"You ... know eachother?", Natsu asked a bit confused and my gaze wandered to my gaping comrades. Even the little Ral stood a bit surprised by the side and did not seem to have been prepared for such a thing.

"Unfortunately.", I grumbled, giving Hanji a quick sideways glance, which just continued to grin.

"We're sort of old colleagues.", she explained, then looked around the table, "You must be the people of Fairy Tail. Man, Levi, that you will find yourself in a Mages Guild, I would not have dreamed such a thing.". As always, she just talked too much to me, I thought with a sigh, and did as I did then: I blinded her as much as I could.

But luckily she did not babble on but went to the second dark door in the room, before which she stopped briefly.

"Wait a minute.", she said to us, knocked briefly and then disappeared into the room next door.

Of course, the others immediately threw me questioning glances, but I only snorted dismissively. If they thought I was going to tell old stories from before, they'd been wrong.

After only a short while, Hanji reappeared from the next room and gave us all a beaming smile. A nervous feeling spread through my stomach as we entered together Erwin Smith's study.

Also this room looked exactly as it did then. Almost all the walls were lined with tall bookshelves and on the dark wooden floor lay a large red carpet that dampened our steps a little. To our right were large bright windows and directly in front of his massive desk, behind which sat a tall person. Due to the light behind his back, we could at first only see the silhouette and we stopped.

So he still loves the big show, I thought grumpily and crossed my arms. The person at the desk now got up and took a few steps toward us so that we could see him better. Under his black suit were clearly the contours of his muscles and I noticed that he wanted to hide the slightly lifeless right sleeve of his jacket, but for me that was not possible. After all, I knew that he had lost his right arm several years ago. He had cut his blond hair a bit since I last saw him, but his alert, pale blue eyes were always looking still as cool through the area as before. But his face looked like it had not aged a day. He had not a single wrinkle in his angular face and when he let his gaze wander over us, his thick eyebrows rose a little in astonishment. Relaxed he put his left hand in the pockets of his suit and a faint grin crept on his face when he looked directly at me.

"Hello Levi." he said in his commanding, deep voice, "Nice to see you again."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter VII

"Hello Erwin.", I grumbled and looked straight into his eyes. Actually, it was kind of good to see him again, because this man was one of the few people on earth I actually considered a friend.

"What?", Lucy asked next to me and looked down at me, "You also know our employer? Why did not you say that much earlier?", I gave her a quick sidelong glance without even lifting a muscle.

"Would that have changed anything?", I asked defiantly back and then turned my attention back to Erwin, whose grin was now a little wider and more enjoyable.

"Still the same as then, what Levi?", he said now amused and I snorted slightly.

"Levi used to work for me.", he told my comrades, who gave him grateful looks, "But that was a few years ago.". Nine years, to be exact, I added toward thoughts. Nine years ago, I had left this place head over heels and was actually back after all.

"Oh?", Natsu asked curiously, "Now that you say it, actually we know next to nothing about you, Levi.". His eyes moved to me but I just scowled at him. He must have realized by now that I was probably the least talkative type on earth so why was he wondering about that?

A polite laugh came from Erwin's mouth as he bored his gaze again into me. "Do not worry,", he said, "Even I do not know all about him yet.". I scowled at him.

"You have an assignment for us?", I muttered to distract me as a topic and immediately Erwin cleared his throat slightly and his expression became serious again.

"As a matter of fact. For those who may not yet know, I would like to briefly explain that I am known as one of the most successful businessmen. My goods are exported to all corners of Fiore and among other things, my company also has the privilege to supply the king.", he explained worldly and I saw my comrades that they literally hung on his lips, "But for some time the incidents have been mounting in my branches. There disappear employees without a trace and never there is any evidence of the perpetrators, not to mention witnesses.".

"Why didn't you ask the royal family for help when you seem to be the best of friends?", I exclaimed and crossed my arms. Fortunately, Erwin ignored my slight bitchiness in the voice and looked at me seriously.

"That would make a big splash.", he answered and pulled his thick eyebrows together slightly, "And that's the last thing I need. Therefore, I preferred to consult a Mages Guild.". I only nodded, because in the years I had worked with him, I had learned that this man had extremely good foresight. He had always taken one step further than anyone else and always kept track of things. I had learned to trust his instructions and judgments and therefore did not question this decision in any way. Erwin Smith knew what he was doing, I was sure.

"However, a pattern of these incidents seems to be emerging.", he continued, leaning slightly against his desk behind him.

"In what way is this pattern?", Erza asked, crossing his arms thoughtfully.

"It seems someone is heading for the cardinal points," he replied, looking directly at her, "The first incidents occurred in my branches to the west. After that, something similar happened in the north and now we received the news that employees have disappeared in the East.". Annoyingly, he curled his forehead and looked at the ground for a moment.

"I almost get the impression that someone is trying to make a fool of me.", he added, and I could almost look at the anger inside him, but of course he was a very businessman who did not share his feelings showed that open.

"And now you want to hire us to stop these incidents?", Erza asked and Erwin nodded.

"However, the first priority is to find my abducted employees and find out who is behind all these incidents and what motivations that someone has. And I think I do not have to tell you that everything should take place under the strictest secrecy, right?", Erwin replied and we all nodded in unison.

Kidnapped employees, I thought. Apparently somebody wanted to damage the empire of Erwin Smith. But who could be bold enough to do that in such a way?

"Do you think the perpetrators will strike next in your branches in the South?", Erza continued and Erwin nodded again.

"That's what I'm expecting. Let my secretary Hanji give you the exact details. She explains where exactly you have to go. Of course, I'll cover the travel expenses.", he said and a weak, polite smile returned to his face.

"Well, you can count on us, Mr. Smith.", Erza now said optimistically and gave him a friendly smile, "We will do our best.".

"That's what I'm going for.", Erwin said and gave me a quick glance.

"Then come!", Erza commanded imperiously and like lap dogs all the others followed her from the room. When I, too, wanted to leave the room, Erwin's voice stopped me.

"Would you like to stay a moment, Levi?", he asked and without an answer, I closed the door behind Gray, who had run in front of me and turned back to Erwin. When I looked at him, he looked at me with a very weak smile.

"It's reassuring to know that you're okay.", he said, not sounding as commanding as he had been, "To be honest, I wondered what happened to you after you left."

I shrugged and crossed my arms. "I traveled a lot. And then, for some unknown reason, it turned me into that guild.", I said dryly and Erwin nodded.

"Nice that you've found new comrades.", he said and I pressed my jaws tightly together. New comrades, it haunted my mind. It felt wrong to think that way. I would never again find such comrades as I once had them. I would never feel that sense of togetherness again, because that had died with them then.

Erwin looked at me carefully and seemed to see that he had hit me with a nerve.

"Levi, you know how sorry I am for what happened back then.", he said quietly and I sighed weakly and closed my eyes for a moment.

"I know.", I said only and fought again against the feeling chaos in me.

"And I really regretted it when you left so fast.", he added and I heard him sigh softly.

"I just could not stand it anymore, you know that, Erwin.", I said in a deep voice, "Everything here reminded me of them.".

"I understand that. But that did not make it any easier for me, you know.", he said to me now and angry, I opened my eyes again and looked at him.

"What do you know?", I snapped irritably at him, "You have no real idea what I have then gone through.". It probably was wrong and unfair to approach him like this but as so often I just did not know what to do with my feelings and confused thoughts and saw only one way out: the flight forward.

To my astonishment Erwin remained completely relaxed and suddenly looked quite sad. For a moment he turned around and looked out of the window, lost in thought. An awkward silence spread over between us, but I forced myself not to throw even further allegations towards him.

"Of course you're right, Levi. I did not feel the same as you do. But believe me, it has hit me all too hard. After all, they were somehow dear to me, in all the time they were here.", he said now and turned back to me to face me directly.

 _"Hey Levi!", his voice called out and my eyes wandered to him, "Do_ _n'_ _t_ _you_ _think we should not run away from these idiots, but instead give them a rubdown?"._

 _Next to me, it laughed loud and spiteful._ _"Naturally!_ _After_ _all,_ _nobody_ _impresses us!", she exclaimed enthusiastically and I rolled my eyes._

 _"Are you really that stupid?_ _These are not the normal types of city watch._ _They're playing in a different league here.", I snapped._ _We ran to three abreast through maze of narrow streets of the city, I was in the middle, as their "leader"._

 _"But what are we going to do_ _then?", she asked not so optimistic anymore._ _I gave her a quick glance._ _With wide eyes she looked at me and for a brief moment I saw something like fear flare up._ _I will not let anything happen to you, I thought as I turned my gaze forward again._

 _"Quite simply, do not let us get caught.", I grumbled, "We know each other a lot better here._ _We shake them off and then return to our hiding place."._

 _"Alright!", he called from my other side and together we increased our pace again._ _Behind us, I heard again the footsteps of our pursuers, who seemed to be coming ever closer threateningly._ _These guys were really much tougher and more enduring than those from the city watch._

 _"We split up._ _You know where we'll meet again later.", I shouted to my two comrades and already they both flew away in different directions._

 _"See you later, Levi!", she called to me still giggling, as she disappeared even behind a corner of a house._ _I rolled my eyes again._ _Why could she still laugh in such a situation?_

 _I forced myself to run a little faster and turned off behind countless corners to further confuse my pursuers._ _Fortunately, having to fight hard to survive, my body was pretty toned and could easily withstand these hardships._ _For a moment I glanced over my shoulder and saw only two figures behind me._ _They are really stubborn, I thought angrily and ran into an alley that ended abruptly in front of a high wooden fence._ _Smooth, I jumped up to this fence, grabbed the end of the fence slats and swung it_ _up_ _over the obstacle._ _In a flowing role, I landed on the other side of the ground, jumped up and immediately ran on._ _That would certainly stop them for some time, I thought triumphantly, as I suddenly heard footsteps behind me._ _When I threw my head back in amazement, I recognized my two pursuers, as fast as I had crossed the wooden fence._ _Bastards!_

 _So the pace picked up again, turned back into countless lanes, submerged briefly in a small crowd and finally disappeared again into the dark and isolated streets of the city._

 _After a while, I slowed down a bit and now, a little bit out of breath, I turned back to find myself_ _content that I was alone._ _I had probably hung them off eventually, I thought, finally allowing my body a little rest._

 _Just as I was about to go to our meeting place, suddenly a big dark shadow from right shot up and threw me to the ground, right into a muddy puddle._ _In a flash, I scrambled to my feet and jumped back from the attacker._ _In front of me stood a huge, gigantic man with a small mustache and big, dark eyes._ _He fixed his eyes on me and I had no doubt at once that he was one of the two who had been haunting me earlier._ _How could they find me so fast?_ _With a low growl he threw himself forward again and tried to pull me down again, but I jumped to the side again and stretched out my arms to the sides._

 _"Blade incantation!", I exclaimed and immediately two pointed knives formed in my hands._ _Actually, I did not mean to use violence, but this guy left me with his tenacity no choice._ _Infuriated, I threw myself toward him to do some cuts on him, but he dodged me skillfully._ _For a few seconds we danced around each other, each time trying_ _to land_ _a hit, until he finally drew a narrow dagger and jumped at me._ _At first he pretended to aim at my left side, but then attacked me from the right._ _At the last moment I could tear up one of my knives, otherwise he would have cut his blade directly into my flesh._

 _Metal on metal clanged now_ _on_ _bright and loud_ _as our weapons met and he pressed hard against my weapon._ _He was much taller and probably stronger than me,_ _but I was able to withstand this pressure for some time and was about to pick out an ugly counter sleep when suddenly a figure stood next to us._

 _"Stop it.", the person said to me and looked at me piercingly._ _He hast o be crazy, I thought furiously, glaring at him._ _Beside us was a tall, well-trained man with blue eyes and thick blond hair._ _His pithy face looked down at me rather seriously, but something in his eyes looked like some kind of amusement._

 _"Look around.", the blond now said to me, confused, watching_ _my surroundings while I kept trying to withstand the pressure of the giant in front of me._ _At first I thought he was trying to distract me, but then a voice that I knew all too well cut through the silence._

 _"Don't touch me, you ass!", she screamed in frustration._ _Behind a corner of the house, they both suddenly appeared, my comrades, followed by a few other men dressed similarly to the big one in front of me._ _So they grabbed them, I thought ruefully._ _My gaze wandered briefly to my two_ _comrades and I felt cold fear for these two in me._ _Then I looked again at the blond man in front of me, who looked at me coldly and I decided in a fraction of a second._

 _I let my two knives disappear and then raised my hands defensively to signal that I was surrendering._ _The giant in front of me dropped away from me at once_ _and the_ _blond now looked quite satisfied._ _An eerie authority seemed to emanate from him, and it was obvious he was the leader of those guys._

 _I felt someone grab me from behind and hold my arms so I could not escape._ _They wore no uniforms, I realized._ _But who exactly were these people then?_

 _"Amazing._ _You really have a quick mind.", the blonde said to me and stepped right in front of me._ _Smuggling, he crossed his arms and looked down at me._

 _"My name is Erwin Smith._ _And what is your name?", he asked me in a commanding voice, but I just looked at him hateful and said nothing._ _As if I would just tell my name to this proletarian!_

 _When he realized that I probably would not speak immediately, he sighed a little depressed and then looked at the man behind me._

 _"Mike.", he only said to him and then I was forced down to my knees and roughly pushed to the ground._ _I moaned in pain as I was pressed down further and finally put a broad hand on the back of my head._ _Before I knew what was happening to me, my head was pressed down hard, right into a dirty puddle, so that my face disappeared completely for a brief moment._ _I raged and tried with all my might to pull myself away, but against this mountain of a man behind me simply did not arrive._ _Immediately, my head was pulled up a little bit again and I coughed briefly, before I hatefully looked up to the blond again._ _I'm going to pay you for that, I thought furiously and wanted to cut his throat right away._

 _"Stop that!", I heard her scream as the dirty water ran down my face._ _It smelled unpleasant and was just offensive._

 _"Bitch.", I growled angrily, but the blond just squatted in front of me to look at me at eye level._

 _"I'll ask you again._ _What's your name?", he asked again, but I kept silent._ _Although I was utterly reluctant to be immersed in such filthy water, but if he thought he would soften me with it, he had been wrong._

 _"Or should we make your friends first?", he grunted threateningly and any color disappeared from my face._ _That miserable bastard!_ _How cowardly of him to threaten me with such a thing, I squinted over to the two and sighed inwardly._ _I could not stand it, if something would hapen to them. Smith looked at me as I slowly collapsed and in a quiet voice he asked me again: "What is your name?"._

 _"Levi," I grunted growling and looked straight back at him._

 _"Well, Levi.", said Erwin Smith now and seemed quite satisfied, "I would like to make you a deal."._

And now just that man, who let me dive into the dirty water, stood directly opposite of me. I would never have dreamed then that we would appreciate each other so much later. And it was exactly this man who also revealed to me his grief that they were gone and would never return. I had never thought that this loss could hit him too, had always seen only my own grief. But when I thought about it, all his words made sense.

"I know.", I just said, unable to apologize for my words, but I was sure he understood anyway. After years of collaboration, we had learned to read and understand each other in the other, even though we did not say much.

" I trust you, Levi.", he said now, nodding to me, "I'm sure you can do my job.". I looked at him for a moment and then nodded. It was time I said goodbye to him.

"See you soon, Erwin.", I just said and he nodded to me as well when I finally left his study. To my surprise, the others were no longer in the anteroom, only Hanji sat alone at her desk and sorted a few files.

"Your friends have already gone outside. They asked me to tell you that they are waiting for you there.", she said to me with joy, but I did not even look at her. Friends, I thought gruffly. I was not sure if I should call these brats my friends.

"Thanks, Hanji.", I growled monotonously and left the room without another word. I walked silently down the corridor, but when I stood in the big lobby, just outside the front door, I turned and walked down a few more hallways. Fortunately, I still knew my way around very well and soon I was standing in front of a small, inconspicuous wooden door. Carefully, I pushed it open and went through it. This was a small back door that led to the back of the property. We used to go here often to rest outside for a while.

Behind the property was a small rose garden and I walked the gravel path between the beds along and felt a little in time back to when I worked here yet. But this time I did not hear her laugh behind me as she tried to catch up with me and did not listen to his endless lectures about the house being far too big and confusing. This time, all I heard was the crunching of pebbles under my shoes, and an infinite sadness was spreading inside me, like a big, heavy rug.

After a short time I came to a stop and looked up sadly. Here was one of the reasons why I went with this order. I had pushed it too far ahead of me to come here.

I stood in front of a large stone statue depicting an angel, which imposingly raised its arms to the sky and whose wings were fanned out in full width. The left wing was dyed in a very pale blue, which was visible only in direct sunlight. The right wing had a whitish glow and looked almost a bit like marble. In their honor, the wings of this angel had been colored in these two colors, for these had been their favorite colors. Blue and white.

At the feet of the angel a graceful stone tablet had been erected and when I read the words on it, my heart became heavy again. After all these years, my soul still kept cutting me up thinking that they had really left me forever. With great sorrow and melancholy, I let my gaze glide over the dark letters carved into the stone, and a lonely tear rolled down my cheeck as I stodd there all alone.

 _In loving memory of Isabel Magnolia and Furlan Church_


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter VIII

It was like being trapped in a nightmare.

I stood frozen in front of the commemorative plaque for my only two comrades and could not take my eyes off the dark letters as a voice tore me out of this trance.

"Levi! There you are!", she exclaimed and for a moment I really could not say if I was in the present or the past. I recognized Isabel's voice, she called to me as she so often did. She was always so happy and lively when she saw me and although I found that a little annoying most of the time, it warmed my cold heart in a certain way. She would come right next to me and nudge me.

But what did Isabel do here? She was dead.

As if in slow motion, I turned my head to the voice, expecting to see the only too beloved redhead. But when I looked to the side, I only spotted a blue-haired girl and this brutally tore me back to the ground of the facts.

What was she doing here now? Could she not even leave me alone here? Especially at this place she had to run into my path?

"We are waiting for you! Nobody really knew where you are.", she babbled loudly and came running up to me with a faint smile. It was probably unfair and cowardly of me, but I just hated her because of her frightening resemblance to Isabel. I knew this girl could not help it, but her presence alone almost seemed to drive me insane. Every time I looked at her, it felt like someone was punching me in the face with. Knowing that a loved one was gone forever, and then looking into that person's almost exact likeness was simply unbearable and left me with endless agony.

Closely, I turned my gaze back to the angel statue and snorted. Did not she realize that this was an extremely inappropriate moment to bother me?

"What are you doing for so long, we ...", she called on, but stopped abruptly, but just squeaked in fright. Amazed, my gaze flickered to her and I saw her stumble over the slightly outlined border of one of the beds of roses with one of her feet.

It was probably a reflex or the old habit that I had grown over the years of living with the clumsy Isabel, anyway, I responded immediately and put the distance between Wendy and me back in seconds. Just in time, I stopped in front of her to catch her.

Somewhat dazed, she now clung to my arms and looked up at me with wide, astonished eyes and I held my breath in horror. What exactly had I done there? Why did I catch her? But the answer was obvious, my memories and my body knew this movement. It had always been the same with Isabel, and instinctively I had acted the same way from reflex.

"Um ... thank you.", the girl in front of me now said a little shyly and as if she had an infectious disease, I pushed her away from me and took a step back.

"If you stumble every time you run, it's a miracle that you're still alive.", I growled coldly and dismissively and immediately she looked a little sadder. I just hated being the way I was, but I just could not handle this situation. I could not handle the fact that she was so like Isabel and the pain was almost unbearable.

"What are you doing here?", she asked cautiously but I ignored her question. What did she care what I did here? She would not be able to understand it anyway, I thought grudgingly, giving her a quick stare. At the same time I saw her looking at the angel statue and then slowly reading the words on the stone tablet. Her eyes widened briefly as she realized it was a memorial and she was about to open her mouth to say anything, but I was walking past her quickly.

"Come on, brat. I thought, the others are waiting.", I growled, leaving her behind me. Briefly, it was quiet behind me, then I heard her follow me with quick steps and shortly thereafter, we arrived at the front of the estate, where the others were waiting for us.

"There you are finally!", Erza said and gave me reproachful glances, but I just ignored her. She would not scare me like she did with Natsu or Gray.

Without further discussion, we set off after that and made our way to the branch of Erwin, which would probably be affected next. To Natsu's regret, we again traveled part of the way by train and after a few hours we reached the branch of Erwin, which was in the southern part of Fiore.

This one was in a town called Sina, which I had visited a few years ago. It was a thriving commercial metropolis, which was known mainly for its vineyards. Cana would probably feel pretty comfortable here, was my first thought, but at the same time I wondered why it even came to my mind.

When we got off the train, we were immediately in a big and loud crowd. Many of these people wore brightly colored dresses and walked happily and laughing through the bright streets of Sina.

"What's going on here?", Gray asked confused and at the same moment undressed his shirt. The rest of us also looked a little uncomfortable, because the mass of people was almost scary and we had trouble to stay together.

"As far as I know, there's a kind of party going on right now. This takes place every year in Sina, the famous wine festival. Have you already forgotten what Hanji told us about the city?", Erza commented his question and I looked at her briefly. If Hanji had told them that, why did not they find it necessary to inform me during the torturously long train ride? Philistines!

"Wow! So many people! I want to go to this party too, that sounds funny!", Natsu exclaimed and looked around wide-eyed.

"Aye Sir!", Happy agreed with him and they were almost about to disappear in the crowd when Erza just grabbed the collar of Natsu and stopped him.

"Stop that, idiot!", I snapped at him, "Have you forgotten why we're here?". Briefly, Erza looked at me reproachfully, apparently I had robbed her of an opportunity to rant with Natsu, but she also seemed a little relieved.

"Natsu.", Lucy commented on the scene and looked at Natsu reproachfully, "We can still see the party later.". Lucy's reproach really seemed to be successfully and with a bit of disappointment he nodded.

"All right.", he grumbled, crossing his arms in agony.

"Pull yourself together, Natsu.", Gray intervened, "We can not always take care of you like a little kid.". I rolled my eyes, because they would fight again soon.

"Do not talk to me like that, you ...", Natsu started already, but I certainly stepped between them, grabbing both of them by their ears and pulling them with me. Startled, they yelped, but they could not fight me.

"Stop that shit, you bastards. We have an order to carry out.", I growled annoyed and heard the others following us.

"Levi, you are really rough.", Natsu complained and I pulled a little tighter on his ear, which made him yell again.

"Shut up.", I muttered, releasing them after a few steps. Immediately they rubbed their red ears and looked at me as if I were the devil himself.

"Your childish posturing annoys me. So either you behave or I'll break all your bones.", I threatened and although I was a lot smaller than them, now they faltered a step away from me.

"Okay.", they murmured unanimously and snorting, I turned around and sat back in motion.

"Thank you, Levi.", I suddenly heard Erzas voice next to me and amazed I looked to her. With a faint smile, she looked at me and briefly threw her long red hair back.

"Otherwise, I always had to be the one to calm down these two, but you're really doing the work for me.", she said, and I only nodded. After all, I did that especially for my own soul's well-being, because their quarrels were just unnecessary and annoying.

After a while we reached the branch of Erwin. It was on the outskirts and consisted of a tall building and a warehouse located behind it. Up front was the business, which mainly sold high-quality sweets. A few people walked out of the front door and when I glanced briefly into the window, I breathed a little with relief. Fortunately, there were no strawberry pies! Because if that had been the case, we would not have seen Erza for a long time. But I also looked at my comrades that they were quite taken with this shop, especially Wendy.

With wide eyes she stood directly in front of the glass and looked at the displays. "It all looks so delicious!", she enthused and was now so close to the shop window that her nose almost touched the glass.

Instinctively, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her with me. "Come on now, little one. There's no time for that.", I said, pulling her a little way with me, but after a few shots, I froze. What had I just said and what did I do anyway? For a few tough seconds, I stared dumbfounded at my hand, clutching her wrist, then released it as if it were a venomous insect.

With wide eyes she looked at me and did not seem to know exactly what had just happened here. How could something like that happen to me? But my senses had instinctively acted, for they recognized this situation. Even Isabel had often stood in front of such shops, because she had loved sweets so much. And every time I dragged her along with me because she would never have left this place. But now it was Wendy standing in front of me and I still could not quite grasp that my instincts had for a moment believed that Isabel would be standing next to me.

"Levi.", she said quietly and looked at me with her head tilted. Charle immediately floated to her side and glared at me again, as if I had beaten Wendy. The others seemed a bit confused, because of course they had already noticed that I otherwise tried to have as little contact with Wendy, as possible.

I turned on my heel and just kept walking, just trying to fade out what had just happened. "Come on.", I grumbled and heard them move behind me. Under no circumstances should I ever be allowed to do this again, I told myself in a reprimand as we walked around the building and headed for the warehouse. During the train journey, they had told me that we should report to a certain Mr. Yaeger in this hall because he was the branch manager in Sina.

Just as we reached this warehouse, a tall, young man stepped out of the great entrance of the hall and looked at us curiously. With extensive steps he came to us and stopped with a weak smile in front of us. The man had brown, shoulder-length hair, which he tied in a small knot at the back of his head. His skin was pretty tanned and suggested that he spent a lot of time in the open air and his remaining toned body reinforced this suspicion. From large glowing blue-green eyes he looked at us one by one.

How come that such a young boy is already a store manager, I wondered, because I guessed he needed to be around Natsu's age, at the most 18 or 19 years old.

"Hello. Surely you are the magicians Mr Smith talked about?", he asked and his eyes finally stayed with me as I was at the top of our small group.

"Correct.", I growled and crossed my arms, "We're from Fairy Tail.". His smile widened slightly and he nodded in understanding.

"I'm glad you're finally here. My name is Eren Yaeger, I am the store manager here. But call me Eren, everybody here does so.", he introduced himself.

"We are pleased to make your acquaintance, Eren.", Erza said next to me, "I am Erza. Can we maybe go to a place where we can talk undisturbed?".

He nodded at her words and turned around. "Follow me, please.", he said to us over his shoulder as he began to move.

We followed him through the warehouse, which was filled to the ceiling with cardboard boxes. Here and there a few people walked around among the wares, giving us curious glances, but I thougt that there were surprisingly few people who were busy here. Eren led us into a kind of office, which was in the back of the warehouse and together we entered the small room. There was not much decor here, just a wide shelf with countless books and a thin, somewhat rickety-looking desk with a chair behind it. Suspiciously, I eyed the dust layers on the shelf and the table and had the great need to thoroughly clean here first.

"Are there always so few employees here?", Lucy asked, as we all stood in the small office. I gave her a quick sidelong glance. So she had noticed the same thing as me, I thought, she probably seemed to have some kind of thinking.

Eren sighed softly and shook his head. "Actually, a lot more work here, but the kidnappings in the other branches make our workers barely come here. They are afraid that they will disappear as well and somehow I can understand them, too. I myself come here only with a rather queasy feeling here. Only the "bravest" are just here and do their work, because somehow the operation has to go on.".

"Did you already see anything suspicious? Or have people been around here recently who behave abnormally?", Erza asked now, but Eren shook his head again.

"No, nothing like that. So far, everything was quiet here, but I think it's only a matter of time before the perpetrators hit us here, too.", he replied and looked rather grim. It seemed to annoys him and it was obvious that he was angry about being so powerless.

"Do not worry, buddy.", Natsu said cheerfully, stepping in next to Eren and slapping him on the shoulder, "Now we're here and we're going to flatten these kidnappers.". Somewhat surprised, Eren looked at him and then actually smiled weakly.

"We should mount guard.", now Gray thought thoughtfully, "Then we can catch them in the act.".

"Well, of course you can do that, but we do not know when the perpetrators will strike here.", Eren said, crossing his arms.

"So what?", Natsu grinned and I had to refrain from turning my eyes. But somehow I had to agree with my comrades. It seemed like the best thing to do was wait and see.

And so it came about that we actually agreed to split up into teams and to keep watch in different parts of the branch. Finally, Eren agreed with this plan and explained the approximate daily routine in this company and where and at what time most of the employees would be present.

"It would be best if we had a team at the front door, one at the back door and one at the front of the store.", Eren explained now and we all nodded in agreement, "There are still employees in the evening, only a few at night here in the hall.".

"Then Lucy, Happy and I are going to the entrance to the warehouse.", Natsu immediately shouted, putting his hands on his hips in satisfaction. He was probably already craving for a fight again, thinking that his chances for such a thing were the highest there, I guessed.

Erza nodded benevolently. "Agreed. Then Gray and I go to the store and get our post there.", she added, and at that moment I looked at the others in aghast. Wait a minute, if the two were in the store and Natsu with Lucy and Happy at the warehouse entrance, that would mean that...

"So the back door of the warehouse remains for Wendy, me ... and Levi.", Charle interrupted my thoughts and looked at me angrily. I looked back as annoying as this cat really got on my nerves. What bothered me even more was that I apparently had to keep watch with Wendy and her stupid kitten alone. How could I stand it? But now I did not want to be the only one to protest and complain like a little kid, that I was not satisfied with it. I was too proud for that. I could not allowed it that the mere presence of a little girl threw me completely off track!

Still, I grimaced and glanced at Wendy, who looked at me with big, sad eyes and probably thought about what was going on in my head. Somewhat downcast, she lowered her eyes and shyly crossed her arms behind her back.

"Well ... maybe we could change the teams a bit differently...", she started cautiously and everyone looked at her intently.

"All right.", I interrupted, without looking at the girl. Even though I did not like being part of a team with her, I did not want to jeopardize our mission. Somehow I could stand it, I talked stoically to myself. Somehow I would be able to endure the pain in my heart that I felt when I looked at Wendy.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter IX

What a crap. Why had I agreed to this project? I should have rethought and protest against such a team split.

After we had split, Eren had led us to the back door of the warehouse and then disappeared after a short time back into the office. And now, for about two hours, we sat silently beside the inconspicuous gray door in the back of the hall, staring in the air. What a waste of time! And then with Wendy and her stupid cat. Every now and then the two of them whispered softly, but I tried to fade it out as well as possible, that she was there at all.

From time to time noises came from the few workers to us, but otherwise it remained quite quiet. Also, no one met us from the staff in this corner of the hall.

I sat cross-legged left of the door, Wendy on the right. She had pulled her knees to her body and wrapped her arms around it. The white cat sat in front of her, looking at her claws for some time. I snorted softly to myself. What senseless hours, I thought morosely, crossing my arms. I had not even looked at Wendy in those two hours, and luckily she had not even spoken to me. For a moment, I had to remember how I had pulled her briefly with me in front of the store, thinking for a moment that Isabel would stand next to me. I shuddered at the memory and closed my eyes. Never again would I allow such confusion!

"Why?", she asked next to me quietly and confused, I opened my eyes again, but avoided looking to the side. Although she spoke very quietly, I somehow instinctively knew that this question was for me. But I had absolutely no desire to talk to her now and just kept quiet. Maybe she would think I did not hear her if I did not answer.

"What did I do wrong?", Wendy asked a little louder and I sighed very softly. Probably my plan would not work and in the long run I would not be able to play the deaf.

"What do you mean?", I grunted without looking at her and just prayed that her stupid cat would not speak.

"Why are you always so ... strange to me?", her voice came back, now a bit timid and I heard that she was feeling rather insecure. Somehow I had already guessed that she would ask something like that and immediately subconsciously cramped me a little bit. In a way, I understood her need to ask about it, but at the same time it was also unutterably unpleasant to me. It felt so strange when she talked to me, because I heard and saw only Isabel again and again in front of me. But I still had so much discretion that I did not want to say directly to her face that the mere sight of her caused me pain. So I went back to my initial strategy: I kept silent and stared stubbornly at the ground in front of me.

"It's not all about me, is it?", she whispered weakly, but I still understood her pretty well and turned my head to her in amazement. She looked at me with big sad eyes and had her head resting on her knees. A very faint smile played around her lips as she registered that I was looking at her.

What had she just said? I just could not understand this girl. For a few seconds I just stared at her stupidly, before I took hold of something again and scowled, contracting my eyebrows.

"What are you talking about?", I grumbled, but this time she kept an eye on her. She resisted my cold look without further and still looked at me directly.

"At least I can not explain it in another way.", she now said carefully, "Because we do not know each other at all, so theoretically you would have no reason not to like me. There was just the explanation that there is something about me that reminds you of something and that bothers you.".

I swallowed a little uneasily and looked away from her again. It was amazing how close she came to this presumption of truth, and at the same moment I wondered how she managed to get such a realization in the first place? It was almost as if she was watching what was going on inside me, and that scared the hell out of me.

"That's it, rightLevi?", she added softly and I sighed very softly. I was an unjust, selfish and cowardly bastard. I could not stand being constantly reminded of Isabel and therefore blocked every little interaction with Wendy. But actually, this girl did not deserve such a tough relationship, because she could not help that they had left me forever.

"Yes.", I admitted quietly and grudgingly, without looking at her.

"Somehow that makes it a bit easier for me.", she said softly and she actually sounded a bit happy. Confused, my gaze wandered back to her and she smiled shyly at me.

"What?", I asked stropping, because I really could not figure out this statement from her. She laughed for a moment. A bright, happy and childlike laugh. And for the first time, that laugh did not sound like Isabel's to me. Though remotely reminiscent of Isabel's cheerful and extravagant laughter, I now realized for the first time how Wendy's laughter sounded. Free from worries and carefree, so had to be like a child's smile and briefly flared in me a faint envy, because at her age I never had the opportunity to laugh in such a carefree and joyful way.

"It sounds funny, but now I know with certainty that it's not my fault.", she answered my question and gave me a friendly smile.

"You're weird.", I replied immediately, unable to say anything else. This girl was confusing me right now and I did not know exactly where to go with my feelings and thoughts. Then she giggled again. Why was she laughing again?

"You too.", she said a little cheekily and I raised my eyebrows slightly. Now she was also defiant! Annoyed, I snorted and then she became a little calmer again. It was a strange situation, because for the first time it seemed almost bearable for me to be near her. For some reason, I kept thinking about her short laugh. This melodic sound floated through my mind all the time and I simply could not explain why it was so. Why did the laughter of this girl concern me so much?

"May I ask of what I remember you?", Wendy now broke the silence and suddenly sounded very serious and careful.

"Of ... a certain person.", I said quietly, not even knowing exactly why I answered her. I could just have kept silent like I always did, but for some reason I did not do this this time. It was even more as if my mouth was moving on its own and that I no longer had any real control over my voice.

"Oh.", she said in astonishment, "Who is this person?". It hurt me to hear that she was asking about her, assuming that she still walked the earth. But how could she know that she reminded me of a dead woman?

"She was… very close to me.", I growled sadly, feeling my heart tighten. After all this time, remembering Isabel, as well as Furlan, was still so painful. But that's why I wondered why I even answered her questions. Perhaps it was her resemblance to Isabel that made it impossible for me to not respond to her in any way.

"Os.", Said Wendy now and nodded, "So she was something like ... like your lover?". Startled, I raised my head and gave her a venomous look, which made her instantly step on the floor.

"Do not talk such a shit.", I mocked. Early-ripely brat! How did she come up with such a thought? Not even in a dream would I think of seeing a lover in Isabel. It was almost impossible for me, in a way, it even seemed rather repugnant to me. It was not that Isabel was an ugly, young woman, on the contrary! She had been a radiant beauty, but I had never been able to look at her in such a way. For me, she had always been just the little, clumsy Isabel I always wanted to protect, no matter what was needed. Except on that day. I had not been able to protect her that day, and by that time my cold and broken heart had burst into a thousand shards.

"Who was she for you?", Wendy asked, but I just gave her another scowl. Even though I had exchanged a few words with her, it was enough for me now. My amount of speech was covered, and I also could not bring myself to tell Wendy about her name. That would be a bit too much for me.

I was about to throw something unfriendly on her head again, and so keep her from asking me about Isabel, when I suddenly heard a soft rustling and stopped immediately. I listened briefly to the silence and turned my head to all noise came from outside!

"You can tell me, Levi. I will not tell anyone.", Wendy babbled on.

"Shut up!", I hissed at her and scrambled up quickly, but remained in a crouched position. Alarmed, she looked at me and did the same. She seemed to understand immediately that I had noticed something and now raised her nose a little bit. The subtle sense of smell of a Dragon Slayer would give us an enormous advantage here, I thought, as I watched her as she tried to smell something. She almost looked like a dog picking up a track. Biting her eyebrows, she gave me a quick look.

"Someone is coming.", she whispered finally.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter X

Like statues, we three stood there without even lifting a muscle. All our attention was focused on the back door of this warehouse, where we had been sitting for so long. Even Wendy's cat had jumped up immediately and threw her poisonous glances, which usually I got away, now to the door. The sounds from outside grew louder and finally it was clear that someone was working on the door from the outside.

"Blade incantation.", I whispered softly and immediately two narrow daggers formed in my hands. The coolness of the metal on my skin immediately gave me a reassuring feeling because with weapons in my hand, I always felt much safer. I glanced over at Wendy and Charle, who looked in astonishment and a little reverentially at my just-vowed weapons.

Suddenly, with a loud click, the door opened a few inches wide and from outside I heard a triumphant murmur. At least two people, I realized by the different voices and pressed me tight against the wall next to me. We did not know how many were there, so it was safer to have the element of surprise on our side.

In the meantime the dusk had begun, so that the view here in the back of the hall was already limited. Orange rays of the setting sun now slipped in through the crack of the door and lit up the room a little, but fortunately we were in the shade, so we did not could be discovered immediately.

Carefully, the door was pressed further and a dark massive silhouette entered the room with a slow step. At first glance, I realized that this had to be the kidnappers, because this first person was completely covered in the face and wore only dark clothes. Who else should get access to the back door of a warehouse in such a careful and secretive way?

I let the person enter the room a few more steps, fortunately he did not notice us. As just a second person entered, I rushed from behind on the first intruder and kicked him with full force from behind in the knees. Sure, that was not a fair way to bring someone down, but when you grew up in the street, like me, you learn that every means is right to win.

Painfully, the person cried out and went to his knees, as I had to kick as hard as possible. Alarmed, the second person spun around.

"Danger! An ambush!", the person shouted, judging by the voice, this was a woman. Like the first intruder, she was completely dressed in black and covered her face, but under the mask a few bright, blond strands peeked out. At the same moment, she already clenched her fists and looked at me with piercing bright eyes.

"Stone Make!", she shouted and instinctively I acted lightning fast. Without even thinking about it for a second, I threw myself on her and rammed one of my daggers into her shoulder at the same time. Frightened, she screamed as I tore her to the ground and with that, I had achieved exactly what I had intended: I had interrupted her to cast a spell. So she was a magician, I thought as I pulled my dagger out of her skin. Probably the others were also magicians. In a flash, I straightened up over her and gave her another violent kick in the face, so she lay unconscious on the floor.

The first person had recovered from my attack meanwhile again and straightened up now puffing. This was obviously a man, because he was very stocky and towered over for lengths, but I was used to this circumstance now. Almost every one of my opponents had been taller than me. Now my opponent growled briefly before he straightened up completely and took a step in my direction. Just then, Wendy jumped next to me and I stared in horror. What did the brat want here?

"Sky Dragons ...", she started and only then did I realize that she also wanted to fight. But with her Sky Dragon Slayer magic she would not be able to do much in here, on the contrary!

"Are you stupid?", I shouted at her and pushed her aside so that she fell roughly to the ground and was interrupted in her spell. She squeaked in shock when she was knocked over by me, and at that very moment the man took advantage of me. As I had stopped paying attention to him for a few seconds, he now lunged at me, and as he rushed toward me he produced two short short sabers under his clothing.

Just now I could tear up my daggers to catch the blow of his weapons, which otherwise would have drilled with full force into my flesh. Shortly there was a violent exchange of our weapons. He struck with full force each time, so I had trouble parrying his attacks, but at the same time I realized that this man did not seem to be a magician or he would have used his magic long ago.

As we fought, I noticed from the corner of my eye that two more people entered the warehouse through the back door.

"White Moon!", I suddenly heard the annoying voice of Charle and wondered what exactly it was all about, but then had to focus on my opponent again. This chunk of a man seemed to be very tough and tried again and again to stab me, but he did not succeed thanks to my nimble evasive maneuvers.

When I intercepted another blow with my daggers, I gave him a slightly unfair kick in the pit of my stomach, so he gasped slightly. This gave me the chance to give him a strong chin hook and immediately afterwards a solid blow from above on his head. Unconsciously, he then collapsed under me and without appreciating another glance, I whirled around to the other two intruders.

Between the two people stood suddenly a girl in Wendys age with bright white hair, a cat's tail and white cat ears. I blinked confusedly, because for a moment I really thought my eyes would play a joke on me. What was that? Where did this strange catgirl come from?

"Charle!", I heard Wendy calling worriedly, who had meanwhile got herself up and stood a few feet away from this catwoman. She looked at them with wide eyes and only then did I realize that Charle was nowhere to be seen. Could it be that this catgirl was Charle? But how was that possible?

But I could not worry about that now, because we still had two opponents in front of us, who now surrounded the catgirl threateningly. Although she did not seem to be in bad shape, it was clear that she would not stand a chance against these two attackers in the long run.

"Blade incantation.", I called as I rushed at one of the attackers. The two daggers in my hands disappeared and made an elongated and delicate sword that fits perfectly in my hands. When the left person noticed me, she turned to me and firmly pressed her fists together. When dark green circles appeared around the person's hands and shimmered slightly, it was immediately clear to me that I was dealing with a magician again.

"Plant attack!", the person exclaimed in a deep male voice, and suddenly dark green plant tendrils suddenly sprouted from the ground. Like a wild sea monster with countless tentacles they crawled towards me in no time, but with a swift stroke of my sword I was able to sever the tips of the tendrils. I walked on quickly and before the magician in front of me could make another spell, I already held my sword to his throat. He stood there stiff and looked at me fearfully, while I examined him cold from top to bottom.

"If I were you, I would not keep trying to fight me.", I growled annoyed and he only nodded quickly. Next to me, I heard a body slump down to the floor and amazed to find that the catwoman had actually managed to bring down his opponent. Apparently I had underestimated her.

"How many are you?", I snapped at the man in front of me.

"Only ... we're only four.", he stammered intimidated and it was clear to see that this was the truth. Just as he looked down at me in fright, he was not really able to lie on the spot.

"Wendy, Charle! Find something to tie them up with and then get the others.", I ordered the two of them, and as the catgirl actually started moving, it was really clear to me that she was Charle.

Only a few minutes later, the two appeared with thick ropes, with which we tied the four attackers and sat next to each other lined up against the wall. When they sat tied up in front of us, I turned my head to the catwoman. She and Wendy were standing next to me, looking disapprovingly at the attackers in front of them.

"What the hell are you, anyway?", I now asked the catgirl next to me and Charles eyes narrowed to slits, as she looked at me. After all, she was still smaller than me, I thought with a little satisfaction.

"What's the stupid question?", she snapped, crossing her arms. Only now did I realize that now as a human being she wore the same clothes she had on as a cat. The same dark suit with a red tie and the same dark red skirt.

"Why are you no longer a cat?", I growled and crossed my arms as well. Challenging, she looked me in the eye while she snorted indignantly. "Already forgotten? I am also a magician!", she berated me, „And I can transform myself into this shape, because so I can fight much better.".

"You look pretty stupid.", I just commented and indignantly she gasped. Her eyes sparked furious sparks as she took a step toward me.

"Now do not argue.", Wendy tried to settle behind her, but we ignored her.

" I do not have to say that to me, of someone who pushes his companion aside in the middle of a fight!", she snapped irritably at me and her voice kept rocking upwards. Unimpressed, I continued to look down at her without even a single expression. As a cat she had been annoying enough, but as a human she was almost unbearable.

"What was that? Why did you knock Wendy to the ground?", she continued and when I briefly looked at Wendy, I noticed that she was looking at me a bit sadly. Probably she wondered the same and was looking forward to my answer.

Annoyed, I rolled my eyes. "Gosh, are you two really that dumb?", I grumbled, "If she had let her dragon roar in here, the entire hall would have collapsed. How can you act so thoughtlessly?". Shortly, the two really looked a bit dumbfounded. Apparently they had not thought so far so far. What good-for-nothing!

"But ... I just wanted to help.", Wendy muttered a little intimidated and looked down to the ground. She seemed really slightly distressed and did not seem to be thinking about what she was doing, and for a very short while I felt a need to placate her overconcilably, as I had always done with Isabel, when she had apologized for her stupid actions. But I forced myself not to move and sighed only annoyed and loud.

"Make yourself useful by bringing the others out.", I growled.

"We are not your subordinates.", the catgirl hissed immediately, but Wendy already pulled her along.

"That's fine. Come on, Charle.", she said, and a little reluctantly she let the girl pull her away. I shook my head briefly. One little girl was exhausting enough, but two of them were really too much for me!

Then I turned my attention back to the bound captors in front of me. Two were still unconscious. The woman I had knocked down in the meantime had regained consciousness and was now staring at me with hatred, and the plant magician was still giving me frightened glances, though I no longer threatened him with my sword.

Slowly I approached the woman and tore her mask off her face. Underneath hid the face of a young woman with pale blue eyes and a pointed nose. Her light blonde hair just reached her shoulder and was gathered in a braid at the nape of her neck.

"Who are you?", I asked her threatening, but she stared at me just bitten into my eyes. Ah, one of the hard kind, I thought unimpressed. But that's what sparked my ambition. Slowly, I squatted down in front of her and grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to keep looking at me.

"I have to warn you. I'm not known for being extra patient.", I growled at her and for a moment I saw something like fear flare up in her eyes, but immediately the stubborn look returned from just now. Stoic, she just continued to look at me without uttering a word.

I sighed softly and straightened up again. I looked down at her with folded arms. Without warning, I stepped firmly on one of her legs, which she had stretched out in front of her and it cracked threateningly under my foot. Painfully, she screamed and bent under my footstep. "You ... bastard.", she gasped, glaring at me.

"Who are you?", I repeated my question, but left my foot on her leg and shifted the weight exactly to this point. Tormented, she groaned under the pain, but continued to look at me only hateful. Tough brat, I thought, gritting my teeth.

In a flash, I let out my fist and hit her hard in the face. Sputtering, she spat a little blood aside and gasped in shock. Her lip was now cracked and swollen and her right cheek was flushed red.

"Levi!"m I heard the horrified voice of Wendy behind me and I turned my head. There stood only Wendy and looked at me dumbfounded. She was alone, obviously the others would follow soon.

"What ...", she started and her gaze moved from the injured person to me and back again. Even though I wanted to have as little to do with her as possible, my protective instinct started now. All in all, she was still a little girl and should not know anything about what happens here.

"Wendy.", I said in a low, calm voice and looked straight at her. This kind of being approached by me evidently puzzled her and with wide eyes she looked right at me. "Wait outside.", I continued, "And do not come back in until I tell you.". To my astonishment, she nodded slowly, but continued to look at me in confusion. Carefully, she actually left the room again, but she gave me a last, hesitant look as she went out. She's scared, I thought, and to my astonishment, that realization bothered me a little. She is scared of my behavior.

However, I was alone again and did not have to worry about anyone seeing this.

"You two are cute.", the woman in front of me said mockingly, grinning cheekily at me with her battered face. She had nerves! To be provocative in such a state! With full force I kicked her again on the already injured leg and listened with satisfaction her shrieking cry of pain. If she thought she could just sit here, she'd been wrong. I was ready to go much further to get information. When she remained silent, I kicked her in the face again and even knocked out some of her teeth, which she spit out bleeding.

"It's enough, you monster!", suddenly shouted the plant magic and amazed I turned my head to him. Startled, he stared at me and apparently my interrogation methods seemed to succeed.

"Leave Caven alone!", he screamed hatefully and I raised an eyebrow. Lustless, I let go of the now heavily panting woman in front of me and took a few steps toward the man. I also tore his mask from his face and realized that he needed to be about the same age as the woman. He had some scars on his face and dark, brown hair.

"I'll stop immediately if I get the information I want.", I growled at him. It was obvious that he would collapse to protect the woman named Caven and that was exactly my advantage.

"Duran, you idiot. Do not tell him anything.", Caven hissed at him, but the man named Duran did not pay attention to her. He looked at me hatefully while I stood in front of him with my arms crossed. I took a vague step back to the woman, who was already looking pretty battered.

"If you do not talk, I'll just pick up where I left off ...", I said casually.

"Wait!", the man shouted and I heard his voice that he was just capitulating, "I tell you everything you want to know, but leave her alone.". Intentionally, I did not say anything to it and just turned back to the man to watch him closely.

"We were hired by someone to kidnap the employees of Erwin Smith.", he began and inwardly I already triumphed, "He calls himself Ripper, but who exactly he is, we do not know either. We only met him at an agreed meeting place and he never revealed his face to us.".

"Where have you always met him?", I asked the man in front of me.

"On the south coast in a deserted fishing village called Rose. There's no one else out there.", he answered immediately. Just as he explained to me exactly where this fishing village was, I heard the others behind me enter the room. There was silence for a moment, and they were just staring at the injured Caven, wondering what had happened right here.

"There you are finally.", I said untouched and turned my head back. Erza walked towards me and stood with scowling eyes right in front of me.

"What the hell are you doing?", she snapped.

"What does it look like? I'll interrogate them.", I answered irritably. If she wanted to be a moralist now, she was in the wrong place with me.

"But not like that!", she hissed and pointed her head at Caven. I saw that she was quite shocked and snorted annoyed.

"If it bothers you that way, wait outside.", I muttered to her and she was slightly shocked by my behavior, "But at least I've already found something new.".

Surprised, she looked at me and did not seem to know whether she should praise me or continue to rant. I clearly saw the inner conflict, but finally she folded her arms and looked at me scrutinizingly.

"And what is it?", she asked. Apparently she had decided to ignore my interrogation methods. Quickly, I also notified the others of the new information and amazed they sucked in a breath when they heard all that.

"When are you meeting Ripper again?", Erza asked the man when I finished my explanation.

"In two days. Shortly after sunset.", he replied resignedly.

"So it's clear where we have to go next.", Erza just commented and then turned back to the others, who looked at us silently, "We will meet Ripper.".


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter XI

As soon as we handed over the four kidnappers to Eren, who had taken them into custody with a considerable amount of satisfaction, we had left again. There was no time to waste because in two days we had to be in the deserted village Rose to meet this Ripper.

In my opinion, this name alone does not bode well for this person, for what good-natured person would give himself such a code name? And then there was someone who was brash, or stupid enough, to hire such amateurs as these four kidnappers. In addition, my instincts told me that we would certainly not have an easy time with this Ripper.

As we were already in the south of the kingdom of Fiore, luckily it was not a very long way to this fishing village. However, we did not manage to get there by train, because our destination was quite isolated from any civilization, so we had to walk around the area for a while, until we came upon the first dilapidated houses.

The seagulls became more numerous again and a salty smell of the sea was in the air. That meant we were finally at the finish. The path we had taken consisted only of a beaten track and led us now in the middle of some dilapidated and partly collapsed houses. Some plants were already overgrowing these remnants, and here and there a hare ran among the rubble, suggesting that this village had not been inhabited for a long time. Briefly, I wondered what had happened here, because there was almost no house that was still fully preserved. It almost seemed as if a whirlwind had swept through this place and turned it from one day to the next into a ghost village. What had happened to the former residents?

But these questions did not interest us now. We were here for one reason only: to meet Ripper. However, with a glance at my comrades, I sensed that they had similar questions and thoughts as I had. And even if I did not like to admit it, but somehow there was a certain weird aura here in this place. It was hard to explain, but it was almost as if a dark omen hovered over this deserted village.

"If the statements of these kidnappers are correct, then Ripper would have to show up tonight.", Erza broke the ghostly silence. She led our small group and finally stood with her arms crossed in a place that used to be the village center.

"A fitting meeting place for someone who calls himself Ripper.", Gray said coolly and looked around.

"Well, I think it's a bit scary.", Lucy said, instinctively taking a step closer to Natsu. As always, he looked quite unimpressed and just grinned cheekily.

"What's up, Lucy? Do you think this is where the ghosts of the former villagers are haunting?", he grinned, raising his hands threateningly. Immediately the blonde threw him venomous glances and folded her arms slightly offended.

"Stop it, Natsu.", she reprimanded him, but he just grinned wider and started making howling ghost sounds. Of course, Happy immediately agreed and it was not long before the two chased a screaming Lucy between the houses, pretending they were two ghosts. I rolled my eyes annoyed. Could not they even be serious?

"Well, I think it's pretty scary, too.", Wendy murmured quietly next to me and looked around a little anxiously.

"You do not have to be scared, Wendy.", Erza said to her in a strong voice and smiled at her, "Ghosts and such things do not exist.". Although the girl nodded next to me, but she looked as if this statement would only partially satisfy her.

Suddenly there was a loud crash behind us and judging by the sound, old and rotten wood shattered there. We all jumped in alarm and next to me Wendy squealed hysterically. No sooner had I heard her screeching than I already felt her clinging fearfully to my arm and pressing herself close to me. Without first noticing, I threw my head around to see what this noise had caused. Behind us, a large cloud of dust had whirled up where it covered and obscured the view. But when it slowly cleared again, we looked into the big eyes of Happy, who was sitting on a broken roof beam of one of the houses. He had probably jumped on it and the rotten wood had given way beneath him and broken through. But still anger raged up inside me. Did he, and Natsu, notice that this was not a place or an opportunity to fool around? We were on a mission and would soon meet the initiator of the kidnappings and these two had nothing better to do than run stupidly around here?

And only then did I really register that Wendy was still clinging to me and immediately stiffened. Slowly, my eyes slid down to her and a cold shower ran down my spine. Why did she have to do almost everything the way Isabel always did? How many times would she torture me with it?

"Let me go.", I muttered in a low and silent voice and had to control myself, not simply to snatch my arm out of her. Her eyes shot up to me and only then did she seem to realize that she was still clinging to my arm. Almost startled, she immediately released me and took a step back.

"Sorry.", she said quietly and looked down, "But I was just so scared.". I almost did not come to that fact, I thought cynically and looked down at the floor. A jumble of feelings raged in me again, because on the one hand I felt again the pain that her presence made me, but somewhere deep inside me was a kind of happiness. Lucky that she just stood here next to me.

"Hehe. Wendy thought I was a ghost.", Happy chuckled and we all turned our heads back to him,"She was so startled that she almost jumped on Levi's back.".

"I was not!", Wendy shouted immediately embarrassed and went fiery red on the face. Even the way she blush reminded me of little Isabel, I thought in frustration as I looked at her.

But somehow it already looked cute as she blushed, it went through my head and at that moment I wondered what I was thinking?! But still, I could not help admitting that it was frenzying me to watch Happy make fun of Wendy.

Without thinking much about it, I started moving and headed straight for the still-smoldering cat. With one smooth motion, I embraced his tail and pulled him from the bar down on which he had just been sitting. Immediately his giggling stuck in his throat, because now he hung upside down in front of me and looked at me with big eyes.

"Natsu! Help me! Levi has gone crazy!", he exclaimed in horror, trying to free himself from my grip, which he did not succeed. With a lot of noise Natsu came running immediately and stood in front of me indignant. Behind him, I spotted Lucy, who seemed quite happy that Natsu was not turning back to her and could not chase her around.

"What's up, Levi?", Natsu snapped at me, putting his hands on his hips, "Let Happy go!". In his eyes, I immediately saw the fire and the anger flare up and it was obvious that he would start a fight with me without hesitation. For a very brief moment it seemed really tempting to compete with him in a fight and to give him a proper beating, but I was just able to fight against this urge.

"No!", I growled at him, "The question is, what should that be, what you are doing here?! We are here because we meet Ripper and not to play ghosts and run around uselessly, you damned brats!". At the growling and threatening sound of my voice, Natsu actually jerked a little and Happy started to tremble in front of me.

"Spoilsport.", Natsu murmured insulted and continued to look at me and angrily I narrowed my eyes to slits.

"What?", I snapped irritably. This kid did not seem to quite understand that we were not here for fun!

"Alright, Levi.", he said placatingly, looking at me as if I were a monster, "Was not meant that way. But now please let Happy down.". With a snort, I responded to his request and let Happy simply flop to the ground on the spot. He squealed in alarm and could just spread his wings to avoid a hard fall. Then he immediately flew frantically behind Natsu and stared at me anxiously.

The others had followed our little quarrel with a safe distance and a brief uncomfortable silence entered between us, in which nobody knew what to say.

"All right.", Erza finally broke the silence and cleared her throat, "We should then take up positions.". Hopefully, Natsu and Happy could at least finish this without doing anything stupid again, I thought grudgingly, but this time I was silent. If I started a quarrel again, I would certainly irritate Natsu too much. He already looked like he wanted to rip my head off.

"Sooner or later, this guy will certainly turn up here in the village center.", Gray thought aloud, "It would be best if we hid here.". The others nodded.

"Okay.", Erza agreed, and together we looked for a place to hold out. Between the large fallen beams of a house right at the village center, we found a good hiding place, from which you had a good view of the surroundings, but still could not be discovered so easily. When the others got comfortable there, I stepped away from them a few paces.

"I'll take another look around the village.", I said to them while turning my back to them.

"Alright.", I heard Lucy say, as I walked away from them quickly.

Grumbling, I walked through the neglected streets of the village and looked at everything exactly. It was necessary for me to get away from the others again, because sometimes they all got on my nerves so much that I could not stand it anymore. Especially Natsu and Happy, when they behaved like they did! I snorted annoyed. It had never been so bad with Isabel and Furlan, I thought sadly. Although the two of them had also often brought me to incandescence, but it had never been that I could not stand it in their presence. Actually, we had even been inseparable. I had often wondered how the two of them had endured it with a cynical and grumpy bastard like me. They had this special way of making my dark heart laugh. I probably had forgotten how to engage with others since the two were gone. That's probably why I got upset about the many other little things that my comrades here did. But actually, there was no point in thinking about it now, I thought, folding my arms. It has gone by and I would never get back Isabel and Furlan.

Somewhat melancholy, I stopped now. I had reached the edge of the village, which bordered directly on the sea and now I looked at the clear and wide waters of the sea. Many seagulls floated over my head and the air tasted salty. The sun slowly dipped towards the horizon, creating a wonderful, almost calming mood through its radiant and warm light.

 _"Someday, we will go to the sea, right Levi?", Isabel laughed next to me._ _The three of us were lying on a large blanket_ _in a meadow_ _and looked up into the dark starry sky._ _A mild summer wind blew around our noses and let the leaves of the trees gently rustle._

 _"What do you want by the sea?", Furlan asked laughing and turned his head to us._ _Isabel was lying between us, her arms crossed on her stomach and looking up into the sky, beaming with joy._

 _"Enjoy the wide, the freedom!", she replied cheerfully, "We have lived in a confined space for so long, so it would be wonderful to finally be able to see the sea."._

 _"Yeah, but what do you want to do then if you're standing by the sea?", Furlan smirked, grinning, "All the while staring stupidly at the water?"._ _Isabel then turned her head to Furlan and I was almost sure that she looked at him reproachfully._

 _"You're really stupid, Furlan.", she said, but still had to laugh brightly, "Of course I want to go swimming then!"._

 _"You can not even swim.", I said and then she turned her head and looked at me with a big smile._

 _"So what?_ _I have my two strong boys.", she giggled, spreading her arms and putting them around our necks to pull Furlan and me closer to her," If I go down, you two will just save me."._

 _I snorted lightly as she pressed my head against her shoulder._ _"I would not be so sure if I were you!", I grumbled._

 _Then she laughed again bright with her wonderful, carefree laugh and before I knew it, she pressed a big kiss on my forehead._ _"I know that I can always rely on you.", she whispered happily, as I grimaced in disgust._

 _"Stop that shit.", I grumbled, making her chuckle._

 _"Hey!", Furlan protested from her other side, "And what about me?"._ _With another giggle, she turned her head to him and also pressed him a big smack on the cheek._ _Unlike me, he laughed happily now, but somehow I had to admit that it was amusing to be so threesome here._ _It was a familiar and homely feeling and although I did not like it when Isabel became so attached, it was somehow nice to know that I was not alone._

 _With a sigh, she pulled us both a little_ _closer to her_ _and looked up at the stars again._ _For a moment I looked at my little Isabel from the side._ _She was always so happy and confident and she, like Furlan, relied on me._ _I was never allowed to let her lose her smile one day, so I swore to myself._ _Slowly I also looked_ _up again to the starry sky._

 _"Someday, we'll go to the sea, Isabel.", I said softly to her, "I promise you that."._

But I had never been able to keep that promise and that guilt still haunted me like a dark shadow. It was only years after their death that I was able to overcome myself for the first time in my life looking at the sea. At that time it almost felt like a betrayal of my two friends and now again in a similar place, brought these feelings in me again.

You would have liked it here, I thought sadly, looking at the soft, rushing waves. Screaming, Isabel would have run down to the water and thrown herself into the water while Furlan ran after her like an over-worried mother. But now it was only me who stood alone and lost here, gazing into the distant horizon. What an unjust world.

Sometimes I wondered how my life would have been if the two were still at my side. Would we still work for Erwin? Or if the three of us would eventually have joined a magician guild? Maybe even Fairy Tail?

With a loud sigh, I shook my head as if to get these thoughts out of my head. To pity myself would not bring them back to life, I thought to myself and slowly started moving again to continue my tour. At first I got upset about Natsu because he did not take this seriously enough and then I stood around here staring silently at the sea. How pathetic!

I ran on amidst the dilapidated houses without a word, before I had declared my tour finished and I was sure that I was again able to withstand the presence of the others without getting angry again immediately. So I headed purposefully towards our hideout at the village center when I stopped short of it. I thought that I had just heard my name from the murmur of the others and now remained instinctively completely calm.

"... completely over the top, how he reacted.", I heard Natsu's voice say. He still sounded quite offended and did not seem to have digested that I had bruised him and Happy.

"If you are honest, you have to admit that he was justifiably angry. You two are too chaotic sometimes.", I heard Erza say and heard a muffled, agreeing murmur.

"What can I do that he does not understand fun? He's always miserable and colder than Gray's ice.", Natsu tried to defend himself and I snorted softly. This naughty snob!

"That 's just his nature.", I suddenly heard Wendy's voice and raised an eyebrow in astonishment, "I think he has his reasons why he is the way he is now.". Was the kid actually trying to defend me from Natsu? How did she come to such a thing? Somehow I was uncomfortable knowing that Wendy was working for me in whatever way, so I quickly started moving again.

"If I were Ripper, you were probably already discovered, if not dead.", I growled at them as I entered the hideout and they all scared winced a little. For a moment, they looked guiltily to the ground, but I pretended not to hear what they had been talking about before.

"He's supposed to show up here later. So do not panic.", Natsu said immediately unconcerned and I took a few deep breaths, not to tell him again how his naive and carefree way annoyed me. It would not be wise to start a fight now, because soon dusk would set in. Silently I sat between Gray and Erza and tried to stay calm.

More or less silently, we then just waited until the darkness slowly set in and it became noticeably quieter. Only the sound of the sea still came to us and a ghostly silence lay over the fishing village.

As it was already completely dark, we finally heard steps and alarmed we ducked instantly in combat-ready positions. None of us dared barely even breathe when we all peered into the village square and saw a tall figure coming to a halt with slow steps in the middle of the square. The moon was now shining down on us, plunging the person there in an eerie and cold light. The figure was tall and strong, apparently a man, and wore a broad hat that hung low over his face. A long, dark cloak wafted around his body, reaching almost to the ground, giving him an eerie look.

"My goodness, my goodness.", the figure spoke suddenly in a deep, scratchy voice, but kept his head lowered and I immediately had a shiver down my spine. Could that really be?

"I did not think we would see each other like this again.", the man laughed grumpily, finally raising his head and looking directly in our direction. How could he have noticed us so fast?

"What is it? Aren't you glad to see me again, Levi?", the man asked, laughing hoarsely and my eyes widened in horror as I registered who this man was. For a short moment I was terrified, because I knew this person who stood in the middle of the village square in front of us only too well.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter XII

"What ... what's that?", Gray whispered next to me, completely stunned, while I stared as if spellbound at the man opposite us.

"Come on, my little one.", the man shouted now and put his hands on his hips, "How long are you going to play hide and seek? You're out of age, are not you?". I clenched my teeth and forced myself to breathe calmly. What the hell was he doing here? Why was he, of all people, this Ripper?

"How did he discover us so fast?", I heard Erza whisper beside Gray, scowling at my face. Well, knowing it was him, it did not really surprise me that he had already tracked us down. He had always had a sense of ambushes and hiding places, and at the same time, I blamed myself for not providing better camouflage. But how could I have expected that exactly the man who had taught me to submerge perfectly would be here today?

"Who is that, Levi?", Wendy asked in a thin voice behind me but I did not answer. My thoughts were racing wildly because I was trying to work out which approach would be the smartest. This man was not to be underestimated. I was sure that he would surely kill all my fellow comrades here, because many years ago I had witnessed this approach myself with my own eyes. And even though we had some capable magicians among us, he was still a very dangerous and serious adversary. As I thought this through, I finally made a decision.

"You stay here. This man is too dangerous. With luck, he may not know exactly how many we are. I will talk to him and distract him. Meanwhile, you try to escape undetected.", I whispered to the others, who immediately gave me dumbfounded glances.

"Are you crazy?", Natsu whispered behind Wendy, "We will not leave you alone with this guy.". Briefly, I looked into his fiery eyes and for the first time had the feeling that he was serious about what I said.

"Then plan an ambush for me as soon as you get away. But if you all stay here, it is too dangerous for you. This man there has already killed people with his own hands!", I muttered, glaring at them. They should escape from here! Why did not they just do what I told them? If they faced him, they would be in mortal danger and for no price in the world would I lose more of my comrades!

"Alright.", Erza whispered suddenly in agreement and looked at me seriously. She seemed to understand that I wanted them all out of the line of fire and gratefully I nodded curtly to her.

"But ...", Wendy protested softly, but Erza put a hand on her shoulder, which made her instantly silent. Slowly I got up and left our hiding place in a crouched position, feeling the girl's gaze on my back.

A dirty, faint laugh escaped the man when he discovered I was recognizing myself and drilled his cold gaze directly into mine. Every muscle in my body was tense, always ready to go into battle.

Slowly, I walked up to him and listened to my hasty breath. I was not allowed to make a mistake now. A mistake and this would all end in disaster.

It was almost eerily quiet when I finally stopped at a safe distance from him. In the distance you could hear a little owl, whose sound mingled gently with the soft sound of the ocean waves. This soothing soundscape did not really suit the current atmosphere, which was so full of excitement and mistrust.

Then he slowly raised his hand and pushed his broad hat off his face a bit to grin at me. His thin face was now riddled with a few wrinkles that made him unable to deny his age, but his dark brown hair still seemed to have a healthy, strong color. A thin beard graced his chin, and from his gray eyes, which were so much like mine, he looked at me piercingly.

"Huh?", he suddenly broke the silence and scratched his head, " You have not grown up since then. Are you already a man?". Inwardly I was seething with anger and wanted to beat his stupid grin off his face, but I forced myself to stand still. He wanted to provoke me and lure me out of reserve, but I would not do him a favor.

"And you got fatter. And old, on top of that.", I growled back and he shook his head, laughing.

"Still so cheeky and sassy, Levi? Did you forget what happens when you act like that to me?", he grunted and his grin died away. Defiantly, I snorted.

"As if you've ever taken care of a shit on how I behave.", I replied snotty and stared at him stubbornly. It was strange to meet him again after all this time and I did not know exactly what to feel. Joy? Anger? Relief? Contempt? Probably a little bit of everything. And though I had not seen him for so long, apart from the wrinkles, he still looked just like my memories, as if hardly a day had passed since then. Sometimes I had wondered if I should look for him after he had disappeared so suddenly from my life, but had always pushed that thought away from me. And now he was suddenly in in front of me, as my enemy, to whom everything was daring. I had learned early on that he cared very little about who his opponent was. If someone blocked his path to his aim, he had to be eliminated. At that time it was almost everyday for me and only later I did start to think more about it.

"Well, well, is that the rebellious urchin in you again?", he said now with a serious expression and folded his arms, "But actually I knew that you would still be the same as before.".

"What do you want here?", I asked with a threatening voice, "Why are you doing all this?". I just could not figure out why he was behind all these abductions. That was atypical for him and the meaning behind his actions simply did not catch my eye.

He laughed again, grunting briefly. "Oh my little Levi. Are you asking me that seriously?", he grumbled, loosening his crossed arms, " But you and your little friends came here because of me, right?".

I tried skillfully to ignore that he had made fun of my height again and forced me to continue to breathe. Damn, he had noticed the others after all. The question now was whether he had noticed that they were trying to sneak off. Anyway, it would be pointless if I now tried to deny the presence of my comrades.

"I have to admit, I was quite surprised when I found out that you belong to this Mage Guild, that was put on me.", he said in an almost casual chitchat, "Actually, you were never the guy who got on well with people. A property that connects us both.".

"Do you want to become sentimental now?", I growled and soon could not stand this situation anymore. This tense mood was scratching my nerves too much and all sorts of thoughts circled through my mind as to what he could do and what would be the best strategy against him.

He laughed again, humming briefly. "I don't think so. But like you, I gave up being a loner.", he said now, staring at him in astonishment.

"What?", I asked, confused, looking at him with eyes narrowed together. What exactly is this all about?

"I've found my place in this world, kid. And this place is in a guild.", he answered and as he spoke, a gentle gust of wind passed through his dark hair, which reached up to his shoulder, and blew it boldly backwards.

"You are a monster. As if only any guild would be willing to accept you.", I mocked and he began to grin slowly and nasty.

"I could say the same about you, and yet you are now a member of these fairies.", he muttered and his grin turned to a diabolical grimace, "I am sure that the guild _Wrath_ _of_ _Kelpie_ tells you something?".

In fact, I knew the name of this guild, as I had heard Master Makarov speak about them once or twice, always with a great deal of concern in her voice. For _Wrath_ _of_ _Kelpie_ was one of the dark guilds. So he joined a dark guild? Actually, this circumstance should not have surprised me, I thought slightly cynical. It was almost as if this meeting had been predetermined. A reunion after a long time, a fight between two former allies, a fight between fairy and Kelpie.

But if he himself was a member of a guild, did not that mean that he, too, had been hired by someone to commit these kidnappings? Although he was a member of a dark guild, he finally had no reason to kidnap people just for fun and especially so targeted. And finally, it made sense to me why he was behind the kidnapping, because he too was just a middleman, an exporter. There had to be another person who had commissioned him.

"But I think that's pretty fitting.", he said in a threatening voice, "Fairies are such small and delicate creatures. That fits you.". I suppressed an angry growl. That miserable bastard! How long did he want to joke like that? What was he doing with it? When he saw my dogged expression, he grinned slightly hilariously.

"And you sure know what happens to little fairies who fall between the hooves of a kelpie?", he said now and I saw him forming his hands inconspicuously into fists. I hoped that the others had come to a safe distance, because it was obvious that he was tired of chatting. Grimly, I pulled my eyebrows together and did the same, clenching my hands into fists as well.

Never take the first step in combat, it haunted my mind. He had personally taught me these words over and over again. I never thought I would think so when I faced him in battle. But exactly because we both followed this motto, it made things a bit complicated. Neither of us would give in and take the first step, that was certain. So there was probably only one solution.

"Blade incantation!", we both shouted at the same time and exactly at the same time two big axes formed in his hands as I conjured two long and narrow swords. A nasty grin crossed his face as he looked at me with my blades and it was almost as if I saw a spark of pride in those dark and foul eyes. This would not be a normal fight, I thought, looking at him with a mixture of hate and sadness, that was a life-and-death struggle.

"Ice Make. Hammer!", Gray's voice suddenly cut the charged atmosphere and immediately a huge hammer of ice shot down at the man in front of me. He jumped in a fluid movement underneath and could avoid the attack thus.

So you were still here? Honestly, I had not expected that they would really plan an ambush and cold fear rose in me. I was not allowed to let even one of my comrades get killed, because I had sworn that to myself!

"Yay! Now it's going to be interesting here!", the man exclaimed with a dirty laugh and whirled around to Gray, who now showed himself behind him.

"Blade incantation!", he shouted again, but instead of his axes disappearing, two thin and sharp throwing knives formed obliquely above his head. Damn it! He had perfected this ability over the years, it shot through my head alarmed, as I stormed already. In a fraction of a second, he let the throwing knives move to Gray, who probably could not even sense the deadly danger bedause of the darkness.

"Gray!", I yelled and his head flew to me, "Get out!". I could almost see the throwing knives flying straight to his head, but at the last moment, thanks to my scream, Gray actually jumped a bit to the side so that he only escaped death. Unfortunately, he was not fast enough to completely avoid the throwing knives and I was horrified to see one of the knives piercing his shoulder with a disgusting fleshy sound. His painful scream filled the dark night and I stopped abruptly in my run to stare in horror at Gray. He pressed a hand on his wounded shoulder, on the already ran down the dark blood and dripped onto the dry soil.

"Oh crap. I'm a bit rusty.", it now came from the man who stood between Gray and me. Only a few meters separated us from each other and yet he seemed quite cool and relaxed. He hurt him, raced it through my head, he tried to kill him! You miserable bastard! Cold rage boiled up inside me as I gripped my two swords even tighter. An unusual coolness and serenity spread throughout my body as I tensed each of my muscles and it was as if my senses were becoming more and more intense. I will not let you hurt anyone, you filthy bastard!

With that in mind, I stormed toward him again, filled only with rage. Just before I reached him, I yanked up my two swords to catch up to a big punch. All the rage, the anger, and the disappointment of the years he'd abandoned me after he'd just gone that way, now boiled up inside me. Exactly those feelings spoke to me, as I almost hovered over him and angrily shouted his name with cold eyes: "Kenny!".


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter XIII

"Kenny!", I bellowed to him, but with lightning speed he drove over to me and grinned maliciously at me for a fraction of a second. Even before I could ram my blades into his vulnerable flesh, he only conjured a broad battle ax with a breathy whisper, thus warding off my attack. Cold metal clinked when my sword hit his weapon instead of him. He really got strong, it immediately struck my mind, he must have trained tirelessly.

"Didn't I teach you that it's the most dangerous thing to do when you think you've almost got the win?", he growled cheekily, chasing my anger even higher. I was sick of how he behaved towards me. So from above, as if he were still above me and as if I was still the small and helpless child I was once.

Cleverly, he turned the force of my impact so that he could throw me with the help of his battle ax to the side. I flew in the air for a moment, but skilfully landed on my legs, staring at him with narrowed, hateful eyes. He was standing a few feet from me and I hardly touched my feet to the floor, I tore my sword upward to keep protecting them from my torso. Immediately he hit me with the battle ax with full force on me, but fortunately met only my blades, which saved me the life by it.

"Mh ... you seem to have learned a bit.", he grunted now, the grin slowly leaving his face. Apparently he seemed to register slowly that he now had an equal opponent in me. A malicious sense of satisfaction flowed through me, but at the same time I felt a certain melancholy. As a child I had longed so much for gaining recognition from him that I had been so committed to being praised by him in any way. I had done everything he had taught me as hard and brutally as possible, but never a single word of praise ever passed over his lips. He had never thought it necessary to give any credit to me and that had made me quite unsure as a child. I had always thought that I had not been good enough and thus only became more dull. And before I could get as strong as he did, to show him that I was worthy of his appreciation, he was gone, without a word. And now, after all this time, that moment suddenly came so fast. As a child I would have given anything for it, but now I was a grown man who had left his sad childhood long past and was no longer dependent on the recognition and support from others. But still it was strange to experience this moment, if only for a very short time.

"Did you think I would not be able to exist without you, or what?", I teased him a little agitated and with narrowed eyes he fixed me now.

"On the contrary.", he grunted in response and jumped back to regather himself. With both hands he gripped the battle ax tight and seemed ready for the next attack.

For a moment I looked at him a bit surprised. On the contrary? So he had trusted exactly that I could survive without him? But why had he never told me that? Why had he always been so grumpy and cold?

"Blade incantation!", I exclaimed, shaping my two swords into a long and narrow saber, clasping it with both hands on the handle. This would enable me to handle melee better and have better freedom of movement.

And now we stood facing each other again and stared at each other like some moments before. Now it all came down to who made the first move. How long should this fight be? After all, it was kind of like fighting your own reflection, I mused.

Suddenly the dark night was lit up, as if in broad daylight, and Kenny and I immediately stared in the direction of the light, but secretly I could already imagine what was happening.

"Fire Dragons Roar!", I heard Natsu screaming before a huge ball of fire made its way to Kenny, scorching everything that came in his way. Shortly I could see Kenny, how surprised and surprised he was at that moment, but in the last second he dove forward in a jump role and escaped the heat only very close. His long coat blew after him and went into the fire for a very short time, causing the end of the fabric to glow suspiciously red and orange.

But what did Natsu do there? He should stay out of this fight! Kenny was too dangerous!

"Fire Dragons Iron Fist!", Natsu immediately shouted, storming toward Kenny at an almost supernatural speed as his hands began to turn into blazing flames.

"Blade incantation!", Kenny shouted, but without giving up his battle ax. Instead, countless small but deadly throwing stars formed over his head again. As soon as they appeared, they shot directly at Natsu.

"Natsu!", I shouted alarmed and it seemed like it was the same moment I had experienced earlier with Gray. But apparently I had actually underestimated Natsu. Even though he was usually a bit awkward and a bit stupid, his senses and reason seemed to be perfected in the fight. His dark eyes stared directly at the throwing stars as he stopped abruptly and shouted, " Fire Dragons Roar!". Another burst of fire broke away from him and was hurled directly at the throwing stars.

I could scarcely believe my eyes, for as soon as the throwing stars were dipped in Natsu's fire, they began to melt and it was as if they were vanishing in the air. I really underestimated him!

Even Kenny did not seem to be able to fully grasp what was happening right in front of him and was slightly inattentive for a tiny moment. I took advantage of that moment and rushed at him. He was only a few steps away from me and as I ran, I tore the saber up and then immediately let it jump right back down on him. But of course his senses were still so attentive that he noticed that as well. However, his battle ax was heavier and more cumbersome than my saber, which prevented him from lifting it up in time and using it for defense. Instead, he preferred to evade my attack, but still he was not fast enough. Although I could not hurt him seriously, I managed to do a deep cut on his arm, which he now held instinctively in front of his body instead of the battle ax. An agonizing groan escaped him as my cold blade cut into his flesh.

"Requip!", I heard Erza shouting from my other side, and in a shimmering and bulging silver armor she also lunged at Kenny, who did not seem to know what was happening. With two sturdy swords, Erza headed straight for him and was even so fast that she could hit him another blow on one of his legs. However, this cut was not so deep that this one prevented him from running, because he immediately jumped further to the side and suddenly faced three opponents . Apparently it was somehow possible to defeat him, I thought. But the others were not allowed to be reckless because he was still extremely dangerous.

As I looked at him, I also realized that he now had similar thoughts to me and that he was beginning to realize that his chances of winning were diminishing. He was already panting a bit and blood ran from his wounds on his arm and leg.

But we were not allowed to kill him! We had to find out who the client was, who had made him stand here now. I hoped that Erza and Natsu were aware of that, too.

For a moment, Kenny's gray eyes shot to me and he looked directly at me. Our eyes met and it was as if he wanted to tell me something, but I could not say what exactly that should be. Puffing, he kept looking at me as he slowly opened his mouth.

"Blade incantation. Defense.", he said in a low tone, but I could still hear him well. Defense? Was that about ... but he had never been able to do that. He had told me about it before, but even then he had not succeeded. Had he really trained so hard that he was capable of doing so?

And with soft and hissing noises suddenly countless sharp throwing axes appeared high above our heads. All of us immediately looked up to the sky in alarm and already saw a high number of these weapons above us and with each passing second there were more and more. Like a huge threatening carpet, they floated over us, creating a sinister and dangerous atmosphere. It took a lot of magic to use that spell, I thought as I stared in horror at the more than a hundred throwing axes overhead. It would not be long now and they would come down on us. On all of us, except Kenny. Had he been so desperate that he was forced to use this difficult defense spell? But later I could ponder, because now only one thing was important: to get out of reach.

"Levi! Natsu! To me!", Erza shouted and seemed immediately to recognize the seriousness of the situation. My head shot to her and I saw her scowling at the sky. She seemed to wonder if she should try to destroy all those weapons, or rather run away.

But instinctively, I listened to her without questioning what she was about to do. I trusted her intuition as a warrior and only after a few steps I was already with her. Shortly after me Natsu arrived in front of her and without another word she pulled us both close to her.

"Requip!", she exclaimed, summoning a huge iron shield in her hands, which she immediately held directly over our heads, as if holding an oversized umbrella in her hand. No second too late, because right after that we heard the throwing axes falling from above and meeting her shield with dull and clashing noises. Fortunately, her shield was so large that we could fit well below and completely protect ourselves from the deadly projectiles. Next to us it was raining throwing axes from above, which hit the ground with full force and got stuck there. By now, we were completely trapped by this hail of gunfire and the impact sounds of the hatchets on Erza's shield became louder and louder, so you could barely hear your own thoughts. If that had hit us, we would have been torn to pieces in a matter of seconds. Next to me Erza gasped a bit and immediately I reached up my arms to help her hold the shield. Because the more throwing axes hit us, the harder it became and this cost Erza a lot of power. How many weapons had he summoned? With this high number, he could barely stand upright with exhaustion, I thought, while helping Erza hold the shield. Lucy, Gray, Wendy and the cats were safe, because the radius of this gun could not reach that far. It was certainly confined to a specific area, so only the three of us were affected.

And indeed, the bullets on and off us finally became less and less, until at some point we could no longer hear any impact sounds. Puffing, Erza and I slowly lowered the sign, then looked around.

Several throwing axes were scattered around us and I realized that with my assumption I had actually been right. After just a few steps, there were almost no weapons left and it became clear that the attack had taken place only on a small radius around us. It looked as if an army of countless fighters had passed through here, who had thrown away all their weapons wild and confused.

But what worried me immediately was the silence. It was too quiet. Even the sound of the ocean seemed to be holding back at that moment to underscore the eerie silence. Actually, we should have heard him, his gasps, steps from him, at least softly his breath, but there was nothing. With a grim look, I looked over the sea of throwing axes around us and realized ruefully that Kenny was no longer here. He had only used this spell to escape, that wretched bastard.

"He ... he's gone.", Natsu stammered, seeming as surprised as I was. I snorted softly and frustrated. Damn it! How should we find out now who had hired him?

"Natsu! Do you smell him here somewhere?", Erza asked immediately in a commanding voice, but to our regret, Natsu only shook his head sadly.

"No. I can not smell it anywhere and his smell is really memorable.", Natsu grunted and I could hear the frustration," It's as if he's been swallowed up by the ground."

"Did he teleport?", Erza asked, looking around, but I only shook my head grimly.

"No.", I grumbled, "Such magic does not suit him. He would not learn something like that.". The two looked at me questioningly and I sighed softly to myself. I was sure to have some questions from everyone, because the meeting with Kenny had certainly confused them and they wondered for sure where we knew each other.

"Natsu, Erza, Levi! Is everything alright with you?", we heard Lucy's voice cut the silent night. The three of us jumped a little startled, then saw Lucy, Gray, Wendy and the two cats walking past a collapsed house. Gray held his shoulder a little, but he seemed to be doing fine in the circumstances.

"He escaped.", Natsu growled disappointed as they stopped in front of us and Lucy looked him to see if he was hurt.

"What exactly happened here? We've just heard loud clanging all the time.", Wendy said, looking around, pointing to the myriad of weapons around us.

"He did a powerful defensive spell.", I said in a cold voice. It was extremely frustrating that he had managed to escape, I thought, gritting my teeth and looking at the myriad of weapons around us. How should we find him now? How should we continue to execute our order? And once again he had managed to unsettle me and that only because he had disappeared suddenly and without any trace.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter XIV

The whole rest of the night and for a long time of the following day, we were still looking for traces of Kenny, but it was really a hopeless venture. It was as if he had been swallowed up from the ground. We could not even find a traitorous trail of blood even though we had clearly injured him. But that did not really surprise me. He has always been a master at blurring all traces, giving the impression that he never existed.

Since we were all quite exhausted and the day was already over, we decided to set up camp in a nearby forest. After not long, we had piled a few branches to a campfire and spread our blankets around it. While Wendy and Lucy unpacked and distributed some of our provisions ration, the inevitable came: I was asked various questions, as I had already guessed.

"So Levi.", Erza started and looked at me seriously, "You and this Ripper. You know each other, that was obvious. From where? And how exactly do you stand with him?". I sighed quietly to myself, but it would not help if I switched back to stubbornness. It was only fair if I told them the truth.

"His real name is Kenny.", I answered in a deep voice, "And I know him from my childhood. As a child, I lived with him for a while.". As I spoke, Wendy handed me a provisions ration with a faint smile, and I gave her a thankful nod. Then she carefully sat down next to me on the blanket and looked at me with wide and curious eyes as she bit into her food ration.

"Is he your dad?", Lucy asked softly, and I met her eyes briefly. She looked at me sympathetically and briefly remembered that once she had told me that she never had a good relationship with her father. Only shortly before his death, they had come closer again . But if she now expected me to tell her a similar story and then burst into tears, she had been wrong. Actually, I could not really answer her question, because I did not know the answer myself. As far back as I could remember, my mother had always taken care of me alone. I never had a father when I was young. Shortly after her death, Kenny suddenly appeared and had taken care of me, albeit rather unconsciously and grumpily. He had never said who he was exactly except that he had known my mother. He had just been there. Of course, when I was a kid, I wondered if Kenny was my dad. But I had never dared to ask him about it, the fear of rejection was too great. And no matter if he really was my father or not, I'd seen a father figure in him a long time ago, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to get recognition from him. But when he had just left, that dream, that idea, fell like a broken house.

"No.", I just said. I did not want the others to know that I did not know it myself, because that would only have caused speculation.

"But that's probably why he uses exactly the same magic as you, doesn't he?", Gray asked, speaking a little with his mouth full as he started eating as well. Somewhat disgusted, I grimaced, but nodded weakly.

"It was him who taught me this magic. Without him, I would not be a magician today.", I replied and bit off a small piece of my provisions ration.

"Anyway, I'm really mad at this guy. He just disappeared ... completely unfair.", Natsu whispered and crossed his arms with an angry expression. He did not like that the fight had been broken off so abruptly.

"The question now is how to find this Kenny again.", Lucy threw in the round and a soft sigh went through our group. Even I did not have the slightest idea how to track Kenny right now.

"You have no contact with him anymore, or Levi?", Gray asked again and I scowled at him immediately.

"Yes for sure. We meet once a week and then have a nice cup of tea together.", I grumbled and for a moment he actually looked a bit confused, "Of course not, you idiot! What did you think? Strict your brain.". Slightly offended, Gray quickly plastered the rest of his food.

"We could ask Jellal for help. He might know where he is, or at least tell us how we approach his guild, _Wrath_ _of_ _Kelpie_.", Erza mused aloud and I looked at her in surprise.

"Who is Jellal?", I asked, meaning I could see a faint but sly grin on some faces. Oh, were they never grown up?

"Jellal is Erza's lover.", Happy smirked in a squeaky voice, holding his paws over his face to hide his giggles. Erza had a lover? Then that had to be a really tough guy, if he could withstand her whims.

Erza immediately turned red and threw furious glances at the cat, which instantly set him freezing. I never thought that the cool Erza could actually be disturbed by anything.

"He's not my lover.", she said in an icy voice that made all the other grinning faces disappear. Apparently no one dared to make a comment in this regard.

"He's just a good friend.", she added, stammering a bit, fidgeting nervously at her blue skirt. So he really was something like her lover, otherwise she would never react that way. But I did not really care. Even if she had half the guild as a lover, I would not care.

"And why can this guy help us?", I asked, crossing my arms. Erza was obviously glad that I did not follow up in this lover thing and looked at me seriously.

"He is a member of an independent guild, Crime Sorcière. They're after all the dark guilds trying to wipe them out.", Erza told me and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. The whole thing did not sound completely legal and I did not think that just the order-loving Erza had contact with such a guild. However, it was probably just such a guild that could actually help us, so I did not find that suggestion so stupid.

"That could even work.", I said, nodding curtly to Erza, who actually smiled a little shyly, "Where and when can we contact him?".

"I had contact with him just last week.", Erza replied, taking some astonished looks from her friends, "As far as I know, he would have to be near Sabertooth right now.". I tilted my head slightly. Sabertooth? That was a crazy bunch like Fairy Tail, as far as I knew. They were the second-strongest mages guild in Fiore and had undergone massive changes since the Grand Magic Games a few years ago. But I did not know any more, since I had never really dealt with the magician guilds in the country.

"Well that's great!", Natsu exclaimed and grinned wide, "Then we can finally visit Sting and Rogue again.". The others, too, seemed very pleased. Apparently they were all in good contact with the members of Sabertooth and, to my regret, it suggested that the people of Sabertooth were similarly oblique, like my comrades here.

"So it's decided. We'll start tomorrow morning. ", Erza nodded in satisfaction, glancing at each one of us. We all nodded in agreement and for a moment we all followed our thoughts until Lucy gave me that compassionate look again.

"But if he is not your father, who is he then? If you lived with him, surely he means a lot to you, right?", she blurted out, creating an unpleasant silence. Only the crackle of the campfire could be heard and I felt all eyes on me rest. Why did she have to start now? Did not she have anything better to do than worry about my fucking childhood? Stupid brat. Did she have to fathom all my feelings that raged in me? It was like throwing salt into my wound.

"No. And you are annoying.", I just answered curtly and got up grumbling. It was time again to isolate myself, because I was sure that I could not escape the agonizing questions of Lucy or the others otherwise. Besides, I'd really rather be alone now. Alone with me and my thoughts. Without another word, therefore, I disappeared among the trees in the oncoming darkness. Behind me, I heard them whisper briefly, but did not listen carefully. They probably wondered why I was going somewhere alone again.

I did not go far, because here in the forest we should not go too far from each other. If we were attacked, I could still be with them in time to protect them. I could still hear their voices softly as I sat down on the floor and leaned myback against a tree trunk. Between the trees, the faint light of the setting sun came up to me and dipped everything in a dark orange. A few birds were still twittering, and the wind blew gently through the treetops, making the foliage rustle, but otherwise it was pretty quiet here.

Unfortunately, Lucy had been right with her question. Once he really meant a lot to me, because he was the only person in my life who had taken care of me. Of course he had not done that either lovingly or sacrificially, but he had taught me everything needed to survive. Without him, I would surely have starved in the street after a few weeks or been killed by others. Without him, I would not be here today, yet my gratitude was limited. Since the day he just left, without even a word of farewell. He had just been gone and I had been looking for him for a long time, but could never find him. It had been a cruel time. I had nothing and lived on the street for years. Only through unscrupulousness and strength could one survive in the filthy underground district of the capital.

Shortly after Kenny disappeared, I had also begun to investigate my mother, because since she had died so early, I knew very little about her. I could only vaguely remember myself on her face. Bright eyes, dark and long hair, a thin face that might even have been similar to mine. And she always smiled at me. Although we had lived in the dirtiest dwelling in the city and in the worst neighborhood, even though there was only crime and cruelty around us, she always had a smile on her face. She had been busy many times, because she had to make some money somehow. As a small boy, I had never wondered why so many strange men had gone out and in our homes, but, years later, when I did my research, I had learned that she had been a prostitute. At first this fact had been a great shock to me, but now I felt only pity for my mother. She had certainly not chosen this fate and had done everything to earn money, because she had to feed me, her little son. She often had bruises from her "clients" at the end of the day, but she had always tried to cover them up. She had always tried to give me a happy life, but after only a few years she became ill and just did not woke up one morning. As a thin and small boy, who did not know what to do, I had sat in front of her bed for days until Kenny showed up.

And now, just like back then, he had just reappeared. Life could be really strange. Who could have guessed that we would meet again as enemies? I sighed and looked down at the dark forest floor. I regretted not having asked him about my mother before. He had said then that he had known her, so he certainly could have told me a lot about her. And as I sat there between the trees and stared in front of me, I made a decision. If we find Kenny and arrest him, I'll ask him about my mother and if he was my dad. I had lived with this uncertainty long enough, and by now I probably did not have many options to ask.

Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me and almost automatically I murmured: "Blade incantation.". A sharp, narrow dagger formed in my right hand and I pressed myself tight against the tree behind me.

"It's just me.", I recognized Wendy's voice and let the dagger disappear immediately, "Are you mad about Lucy?". I sighed and relaxed my body immediately. What did she want here again? Had not she realized that I had nothing to do with her?

"No.", I snorted as she sat down with a smile in front of me. How could she always smile at me? I had never been friendly to her, so why was she always so happy? She really was just like ... I forced myself not to finish that thought, because that phrase had been too much thrilled by my head.

"But it hurts you to think about the past. That's why you left, right?", she asked cautiously, looking at me from her big eyes. She had her arms wrapped around her legs and pulled tight against her body to protect herself from the nocturnal coolness. With a scowl, I looked back. It was really amazing, because sometimes it seemed to me Wendy was reading me like an open book. Did she have such a good intuition? Otherwise it was hardly possible for anyone to guess my thoughts, even Isabel and Furlan sometimes had a hard time. And Wendy almost always made the truth with her guesses.

"It's late. Do not you have to sleep?", I asked evasively and she immediately pulled a pout.

"The sun has just set. It's not bedtime yet.", she mumbled and for the first time she seemed to be somewhat defiant, "So I'm right?". I sighed annoyed. Why did I have to deal with a naughty child? I did not answer her question because I did not want to show any weakness to her.

"It's okay to be sad, Levi. That's human.", she said softly and smiled weakly again, "But you can talk to me, to us, about that. That's what friends are for.". My eyes widened a little astonished. She regarded me as her friend? Why that? Where did she get that infallible good humor and optimism? And what had I gruff guy done, that a girl like Wendy called me her friend? And as I wondered all this, a warm, comforting feeling spread over me that I had not felt for a long time. Last time I had felt that way when Isabel and Furlan were still with me. But at the same time this feeling scared me and I felt guilty. It did not feel right, almost even a betrayal of my two friends, to feel that way again. And then in the presence of Wendy? The girl who inflicted psychic distress on me, albeit unintentionally?

"You would not understand.", I murmured, amazed at myself for actually answering her. But I was sure she really would not understand, because she was still a young girl. She had certainly suffered little harm and had, unlike me, grown up protected.

But her eyes darkened a little and she suddenly did not look like the sweet and innocent girl. "You think I could not get anything because I'm younger than the others, right?", she asked me, sounding a bit disappointed, "You think I hardly know anything about the world.". Well, with that she had almost exactly guessed my thoughts again.

"What can a little girl understand from grief and sorrow?", I grumbled and looked at the ground between us. I did not even know why I talked to her at all. Maybe my heart told me to answer her.

Then she sighed softly and suddenly sounded incredibly sad. Astonished, I looked up and defiant Wendy was gone. Instead, a very sad and lonely-looking Wendy sat across from me.

"Unfortunately, I understand some of that.", she said softly, "I lost my dragon mother, who raised me. I do not know who my true parents are. I lost my former guild. I almost lost my best friend Charle, and Fairy Tail was once on the brink of ruin. We fought in a battle where no one knew if we would survive it. So I think I understand a lot of suffering and grief.". I just looked at her in surprise. I never would have thought that this little girl had actually gone through so much. I had to admit that I actually misjudged her. I had always seen a small, naive girl in her and by the fact that she was so incredibly like Isabel, I had separated from her from the start. But it looked like there was more than I thought.

"Let's go back.", I said simply, unable to say anything else and got up. She nodded and a fleeting smile returned to her face, yet she seemed a little more serious than usual. Without a word, we returned to the others, who still sat around the campfire and talked animatedly.

"Ah, Wendy, Levi! There you are again. Wendy say, what do you mean?", Natsu immediately chattered as we sat down at the campfire. Wendy took a seat beside me on a blanket, but I tried to ignore that.

"Oh, Natsu! Now stop it, you idiot!", Gray thundered immediately and I sighed softly. So the two seemed to argue again. Why had I ever come back?

"So, I'm on Natsu's side.", Erza said and I shot her a surprised look. Since when did she participate in their disputes?

"What's it all about?", Wendy asked confusedly.

"We think Gray neglects Juvia too much. He should spend much more time with her.", Lucy explained, glaring at Gray. Juvia? As far as I could remember, she was a blue-haired water mage by Fairy Tail, whose entire vocabulary seemed to consist only of "Gray- sama". She was constantly tinkering with him in the guild, worshiping him as if he were a god. Personally, I found her a little disturbed, but everyone else seemed to be fine with her.

"What? With Juvia? So I would prefer to distance myself from this topic.", Wendy stammered now a little nervous laughing and raised her hands defensively.

"Why?", Natsu said something stupid, "There's nothing wrong with that.".

"Or is such a topic embarrassing to you because you're in love with someone?," Happy giggled next to Natsu and Wendy immediately went fire-red.

"Who says Juvia and I are in love?", Gray said ruefully, but received only glances from everyone who suggested: _Everyone says_ _that!._ So they talked about love affairs, I thought a little annoyed. As if there was nothing more important to talk about.

"I? In love? That's rubbish!", Wendy tried to defend herself, but her face kept the color of an overripe tomato.

An almost nasty grin appeared on Lucy's face. "But somebody gets blushing fast. I wonder what's going to happen if I mention the name Romeo?", she asked and indeed Wendy's complexion became even redder, even though that did not seem possible. Romeo was a son of a magician from Fairy Tail and now himself a member. As far as I knew, he was about a year older than Wendy and from time to time I had seen the two talk to each other, but that was all.

"Hihi. Point for you, Lucy. Wendy is even redder.", Happy giggled and looked up at Lucy, grinning.

"That ... you understand wrong! Romeo and I are just friends.", Wendy stammered on, looking like she wanted to dig a hole, get in and never come out again.

"Yeah, that's what Gray says about Juvia. But we all know the truth.", Erza said with a faint grin and crossed her arms knowingly.

"Hey!", Gray tried to protest again, but was ignored by everyone else.

I squinted at little Wendy next to me again, who seemed really uncomfortable. And even if I did not want to admit it to myself, but my protector instinct was awake again at her sight. Often I had also seen Isabel in that state when Furlan had teased her with similar things and I just could not help but defend her.

"Now pull yourself together, brats.", I growled at the others, glaring at them, "Maybe you should not put such rumors in the world and rather listen to what Wendy says to you.". Immediately they all fell silent a bit and I was sure that Wendy looked at me in astonishment. I was a little surprised myself, too. But I could not stand the sight of that helpless little Wendy.

"You're right. Excuse Wendy.", Erza distracted and I heard the girl beside me breathe softly. But then Erza's eyes wandered back to me and I saw a mischievous look in it. " But since we are already on the topic, Levi.", she began and I already knew something evil was coming up, "What is that between you and Cana?".

I froze instantly and looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Why this professional alcoholic? Did not she have anything better to do than worry about that?

"What should be there?", I grumbled dismissively and firmly pressed the jaws together. I did not like talking about it and immediately subconsciously cramped myself.

"Well, she seems to like you.", Lucy also joined in, "I often hear her talk about you and then she always pats you with compliments." Gossip!

"So what?", I grumbled and crossed my arms, "That's hardly my fault.". Do not blush! Do not blush! I hated such gossip. And even though I really did not care for Cana, I found it rather uncomfortable to talk about this topic.

Lucy shrugged innocently and grinned. "She's a pretty girl. I do not understand why you have not invited her on a date yet.", she chattered happily. I was almost sick at the thought of going out with the professional alcoholic.

"No need.", I growled, glaring at Lucy, but that did not really interest her.

"Maybe she just is not his type.", Erza now thought aloud and put a hand thoughtfully on her chin, "What would be your type of woman, Levi?". Surprised, I choked on something and first had to cough. In which direction did this conversation lead right now? But I kept forcing myself to be calm.

"I do not think that's any of your business.", I replied evasively.

"I think a brunette suits you.", Lucy guessed, "Snd she should be tall and slim.". I stared at her a bit dumbfounded. Was she just trying to get a profile from me and then register for a dating agency?

"No way! A blonde woman suits him better.", Erza objected and I did not really know what was happening. And now came a moment that had happened very rarely in my life so far: I was speechless for a brief moment.

"But, tell me, Levi.", Erza spoke now and with a bad foreboding, my eyes wandered to her, "How many women did you have? You're a little older than us and surely you have some more experience in these things, right?".

For a few seconds, I stared at her stupidly. Why did she ask such things? Why did she even talk about that? And even if I could not explain it, but in that moment I somehow did not want to admit that I had never been with a woman before. As well as? I came from the filthiest part of the capital and had always been busy keeping myself alive. There was no room for romantic feelings between crime and homelessness. And besides, I had never met a person I'd felt that way for. Sometimes it even seemed to me that I was not capable of such sensations, but that had never bothered me. I did not need a relationship and that was a good thing. That would surely have confused me otherwise.

"Don't you late-termizing brats realize it's rude to talk about this?", I snapped at Lucy and Erza in an icy voice, "Now stop this shit and start thinking about more important things. Our assignment for example.".

"That's good. I found the topic boring anyway.", Natsu spoke up and for the first time I greeted him, that he participated in the conversation. Actually, Lucy and Erza looked slightly caught, but I saw that they found it strange how I had responded to Erza's question.

"You're right, Levi.", Lucy said not so enthusiastically anymore, "But we can not keep thinking about our mission all the time, so we can talk abput other things. And Erza just asked you a harmless question and ... ".

"It's getting late.", she was suddenly interrupted by Wendy, "We should rest now, because tomorrow we have to be fit.". Astonished, I looked briefly at her and realized how she nodded to me, smiling very weakly.

I heard Lucy sigh, but could only continue to look at Wendy. "Well, you're probably right.", Lucy said now steering and from then on it was quiet. Gratefully, I nodded to Wendy. If she had not interrupted Lucy, she would surely have started from my love life again. I had to admit that I was really happy about that and barely felt the sharp pain that I usually feel when I looked at Wendy.

"Well then ... good night!", it booed from Natsu and after only a few seconds he already snored happily. It was really amazing how fast this kid could fall asleep. The others, too, lay down on the blankets and slowly closed their eyes.

The campfire was now only a small flame and glowed a little. It would not be long and it would be completely extinguished. Slowly I turned my head up to the clear starry sky.

Then I suddenly felt a movement and surprised, I looked down. Wendy was already lying next to me with her eyes closed, moving slightly in half sleep. Slowly and cautiously, she cuddled against my leg and rested her head on it. A blissful smile appeared on her face as she made herself comfortable with me. For a moment, I held my breath in astonishment and at first did not know what to do. Somehow I found it uncomfortable to feel her so close to me, but on the other hand, I did not have the heart to push her away from me. She looked so peaceful and innocent and a long-forgotten feeling was spreading in me: contentment. For a very brief moment, it even felt like the pain I was carrying around in my heart the whole time was forgotten. It was strange that this girl turned my feelings so much upside down. Maybe I did her wrong if I was so dismissive of her. She could not help being so like Isabel. It was like a curse and a blessing at the same time and I just did not know how to handle it.

Sighing, I lifted my head and looked up again into the starry sky, but clearly felt Wendy's warm body on mine. It did not feel right for me to think, to feel that way. What would Isabel say if she saw me like this? If she knew there was suddenly someone like her. It felt like I was betraying her, deceiving her. My little Isabel, who had been like a little sister to me. It was like forgetting her and I certainly did not want that. How should I deal with all this? I wish my two friends were still with me, because then I would have felt stronger. Then I would never have had such confusing thoughts.

And as I looked into the dark night sky and followed my thoughts, I spotted two small shooting stars up in the sky. Almost as if someone wanted to give an answer to all my questions, which remained unfathomable and unreachable for me.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter XV

"I want to go back to sleep.", Natsu grumbled, yawning loudly as he was being dragged along by Lucy.

"Now behave yourself, Natsu!", she told him, struggling to make the powerful guy go. I just rolled my eyes. He was the first to fall asleep and the last to get up. So why was he still complaining that he was still so tired?

Not too long ago we had set out to the next town to travel further from there by train. But we were in a fairly unpopulated area, so it would certainly take a while to reach the next town.

Next to me was a pretty quiet Wendy. When she woke up with her head on my leg, she had moved away from me in shock and had looked at me apologetically with a red face.

"I'm sorry. That was not intentional.", she had meekly and shyly looked at the floor. I had only snorted because the situation itself had been a bit uncomfortable for me and replied: "Children do something like that.". After these words she had looked at me for a moment and then stood up without a word. Since then, she was unusually silent and looked thoughtfully through the area. In short, I actually wondered what was going on in her head, but immediately put the thought aside. I did not care what she was bothering about.

For a while we walked through the forest, in which Lucy and Erza excitedly talked about the flora and fauna of this area. It was about mid-day when we decided to take a little break. Although it was certainly not very far to the next city, but Natsu and Happy grumbled for some time that they were hungry.

In a small clearing we made ourselves comfortable. As I searched the surrounding area for possible hazards, Erza, Lucy, and Gray sat down on a fallen tree trunk.

"Before we travel by train, we must not forget to send a message to Erwin Smith. We should inform him of our information we gathered so far.", I heard Erza tell the others while I joined them again. Natsu and Happy were already grinning broadly and bobbing frantically.

"I heard water nearby. Happy and I go fishing and get some delicious fish!", Natsu chuckled excitedly and the blue cat fluttered around him.

"Aye Sir!", Happy exclaimed enthusiastically and together they were running into the forest. After all, the two chaotics were useful, I thought, folding my arms. With a quick look at the tree trunk, I had decided not to sit down, because it looked clearly way too dirty. I could not understand that the others could safely settle in this mud of bark, moss and moisture.

"I hope Happy does not eat all the fish caught right away.", Lucy said and grinned a little. Unfortunately, this thought was somehow justified.

"Then I go with Charle looking for mushrooms. So we have an alternative to fish.", Wendy said and was already going in another direction.

"But stay close.", she was admonished by Erza, but the girl just nodded silently, without turning around again.

Frowning, I watched her go. My feeling told me that it was not a good idea to let a little girl run around in the woods alone. For Natsu, that was different. In the worst of times, he would even burn a whole forest. But I was not sure if Wendy could adequately defend herself even in an emergency.

Wait a minute, what did I think? Was I really worried because a little girl had gone to pick mushrooms for a while? Imperceptibly, I shook my head over myself and began to pace slowly in front of the others, because somehow I could not really stand still.

While we were waiting, Erza, Lucy and Gray talked a little bit about Sabertooth and her friendships with some of the members, but I did not listen carefully. I preferred to keep an eye on our surroundings and listened to the sounds of the forest. After all, you could never be too careful.

After a while, Natsu and Happy came back and actually had some freshly caught fish. Happy grinning rubbed the conspicuously round belly, but apparently he had not managed to devour all fish immediately, so that a few were left for us. With a proud smile, Natsu flamed the fish after he came to a halt in front of us to make them more edible for us.

Just as Lucy was distributing the fish, Charle suddenly came flying at full speed at us. Her cheeks were a little flushed and her eyes looked excited as she stopped in front of us in the air. Automatically, I tensed immediately, because the feeling of now formed into a big lump in my stomach. Wendy was not there, Charle had returned alone.

"Where is Wendy?", I asked her briskly and her eyes shot to me. With a piercing cool look, she looked at me as she slowly caught her breath. I immediately saw that she was pretty angry with me again, but that was nothing new with her.

"Oh, suddenly you are interested in that?", she snapped in an irritated voice, narrowing her eyes to hate-filled slits. It was enough for me with this stupid cat. Sure, we both just did not get along well with each other and most of the time she just annoyed me, but that was no reason for her to act like that. Why did she react so strangely to my question?

"Calm down, Charle.", Lucy tried to defuse the situation a bit, "First tell us what exactly happened.". The little white cat's head drove around to Lucy and her eyes softened immediately. Weak, she nodded and looked suddenly sad. She sniffed loudly and seemed to have to hold back tears.

"We were picking mushrooms and because Wendy was so strange all day, I asked her what's wrong.", the cat started and looked seriously at Lucy, "She said that you were the reason.". With that, her gaze returned to me and became instantly ice cold. Her voice also shot up considerably at the end of the sentence, for she really seemed to be struggling for her composure. All the heads of the other migrated automatically to me and I now felt all eyes rest on me.

But I was not aware of any guilt. I had not behaved differently to Wendy than usual, so why should she worry so much about it today? I really did not come up with this girl.

"What shit are you babbling about?", I growled at the white cat, because I felt wrongly accused. And besides, her talk still made no sense, because that still did not explain where Wendy was.

"Unbelievable!", Charle now tickled furiously and flew right in front of me, to be able to look me up in the eyes, "She told me that she totally feels misunderstood by you. That you see her only as a small, stupid, naive girl. That hurt Wendy's feelings. I've already preached to her that she should not give anything to a guy like you, but she really seemed to be getting close to that! Then she rambled something about you being too cranky and she just wanted to see you smile. She kept talking about wanting to help you. It's so unbelievable!".

I stared at her stunned. Of course, in Wendy, I had first seen the little, tender girl, but since hinting at what she had already experienced, I had slowly strayed from that opinion. But I had not told that, because why? And was she thinking about it all the time? That was still pretty incomprehensible and unclear. And why would she want to see me smile? No one needed a smile, because in this world, it was not worthwhile to smile.. And what should be this chatter of "help"? I could not really figure out the cat's stories yet.

"Go ahead.", Erza said matter-of-factly and looked back at Charle, who was still staring into my eyes with hatred.

"After that I tried to change the topic until she finally insisted that we split up to look for mushrooms. It would go so much faster, she had said.", she explained and finally turned away her eyes from me, "We made ourselves a place where we wanted to meet again, but at which she never appeared. I searched for her very long. Called her name, looked for her from the air, but I just could not find her.". Now a single tear ran down the little cheek of the cat and under her rough shell now the concern for her friend Wendy came to light.

"She deliberately left you?", Gray asked incredulously, frowning, "That does not sound like her. Why did she do that?".

In me a bad thought formed. Was Wendy stupider than I thought? Was this girl really so reckless? A sad snort escaped me, and I crossed my arms sullenly.

"I think I know what went through her mind.", I growled, and for the first time, I really seemed to understand Wendy's thoughts, even though they still seemed pretty stupid to me. Astonished, they looked at me, only Erza sighed softly and then nodded weakly, before her eyes pierced mine.

"I think the same as you, Levi.", the redhead said, glaring around, "It's obvious that Wendy set off on her own. She probably wants to find Kenny herself and do us, if not Levi, a favor.".

Rather she wanted to prove to me that she can be of help and that she is not a weak, defenseless girl, I added in my mind. So Erza came to the same conclusion as I did. Why was she doing something so stupid? Besides, I did not quite know how to deal with the fact that she was in such danger just to prove something to me. What did this girl only think of me, that she took on something like that? That stupid brat.

"Oh.", it only came from Natsu, who scratched lightly on the back of the head, "But that's not nice of her to claim the whole fight for herself.".

"As if this is just a stupid fight, you idiot.", I snapped at him, whereupon he flinched immediately, " Even three of us could not beat Kenny, so it will hardly be able to accommodate Wendy alone with him. She is in mortal danger when she meets him without us.". It all came to me at once, all I could think of was that little Wendy faced the strong and ruthless Kenny alone. She would not be able to withstand him for a second, and that thought alone made me sick with worry.

"She can not be far yet.", Lucy said in the round and closed Charle in a soothing embrace.

Erza nodded reassuringly. "Right. Show us where you separated. We are looking for her immediately. Natsu, you have to focus on your sense of smell!", Erza said in a command tone and immediately we all swarmed. Charle flew ahead and showed us the place where she had last seen Wendy. From there we all started in different directions, while the two cats rose again into the air and scanned the area from above.

With a pounding heart I ran through the forest and craned my head to all sides, but the forest remained silent, no Wendy. I paused briefly and listened to the silence, hoping I could hear some noise from her.

Stupid idiot, I blamed myself and rammed my fist furiously against the hard bark of a tree next to me. If I had not behaved that way, she would never have come up with the idiotic idea of going off alone, leaving her in mortal danger. It was all my fault. It was as if my past would be repeated, albeit in a different way. At that time, I had become too familiar with my two friends, relying too much on their abilities. This time I had not trusted enough, had underestimated her too much.

We had to find Wendy before she could track down Kenny and face him, because if anything happened to her, I would never forgive myself.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter XVI

"I'm such an idiot.", Charle muttered softly to herself next to me.

I can not argue with that, I answered her in thought, but it did not speak it out loud. It would have been stupid of me to start a quarrel with the cat again, because she seemed to be already completely dissolved.

"You're not to blame, Charle.", Lucy tried to cheer her up a bit.

"I should have recognized immediately what was going through her head and should have done something against it.", the cat held against it, "I should not have agreed with the splitting!".

I rolled my eyes slightly. That's how it went for a while now. After unsuccessfully scouring the area for Wendy, we hurried to the nearest town as fast as possible and boarded the next train. Now we were on the way to Sabertooth. Maybe we made it in time and would find Wendy there. However, we had already lost precious time by searching for her.

"I'm a bad friend.", Charle whined next to me until I finally could not stand it anymore. My head whirled towards her in an instant and I looked into her wet eyes. Startled, she looked up as she saw my movement.

"Now stop it.", I grumbled, looking at her seriously, "Your self-pity does not help us now either. Now it is like that and we have to live with the consequences. None of us could have predicted that Wendy would come up with such a stupid idea. So get together and do your best so we can find Wendy in time.".

Her eyes widened slightly and for the first time she did not look as if she would like to scratch my eyes out right now. I had probably shaken something in her, for now she nodded slowly and wiped a single tear from her cheek with her little paw.

"You're right.", she agreed meekly and with a snort, I turned away from her again. Of course, I had already been tormented by similar thoughts as Charle, but after some time I had called back to my senses, because to blame oneself all the time brought nothing to anyone.

It was a strange train ride, because neither did Natsu complain about his travel sickness, nor did he and Gray argue. Also Lucy, Erza and Happy were quite silent, because each one of us had his own thoughts. They were all worried about Wendy, so no one really felt like talking about anything.

After a long journey, we finally left the train and were soon in front of the headquarter of Sabertooth. I had to admit that I was slightly impressed. Surrounded by some mountains and rocky ground, a large and imposing stone building was enthroned, which was decorated by large and bright banners. On these banners was the guild symbol: a white skull of a sabre-toothed tiger with a wide-open mouth. As far as I could see, the guild consisted of a large complex of different buildings connected to each other. Numerous windows and ornate pillars lined the estate and in the center stood the huge statue of a proud sabre-toothed tiger. The stone animal stretched itself in an imposing pose and had, like the guild symbol itself, opened its mouth wide. The sculpture looked so real and lifelike that it was thought that the animal would leap forward a moment and roar loudly and majestically into the distance.

We headed purposefully toward the huge stone door that led us to the interior of the guild. In a large and bright hall we stopped and looked around briefly. Unlike Fairy Tail, one was not immediately in the gregarious hall, but seemed to enter a kind of entrance hall. A few individual members of Sabertooth walked around here and disappeared behind several doors or looked at us curiously.

"Well, well. Does not Fairy Tail have their own guild quarter or why are fairies appearing here all the time?", suddenly a voice said. Almost at the same time our eyes shot up to the large and wide staircase that led to the next floor. Up there stood a young, tall man, who looked down at us with a cheeky grin on his face and then walked slowly down the stairs.

"Sting!", Natsu called joyfully and ran towards the young man. With a loud high-five, the two greeted each other, while we also slowly approached. That kid was Sting Eucliffe, the master of Sabertooth? Although I knew that the master of this guild should still be quite young, I did not really expect that. He was just as old as Natsu.

A small brown cat with pointed features followed Sting and looked at us with narrow eyes. Apparently, this was also a male cat, because his appearance was quite masculine and he wore a small blue vest.

"Hello people!", the brown cat now exclaimed and Lucy bent down to stroke his head.

"Hello Lector.", she greeted him with a smile on her face and then straightened up to smile at Sting.

"Glad to see you again.", the master of Sabertooth now said and gave each one a big smile as his eyes fell on me and he looked at me curiously. Natsu followed his gaze and grinned at me.

"That's Levi. Our newcomer.", he introduced me and politely Sting approached me and shook hands with me in greeting.

"Oh. I am Sting, Master of Sabertooth. Nice to meet you.", he said good-humouredly and I nodded in response as I examined him. In front of me stood a strong, young man with blond, short hair, who fell into his face a bit foolhardyand unruly. His face was quite narrow and pithy, and above his right eye was a thin pink scar. On his left ear hung a narrow silver earring and his guild symbol was gleaming in a shimmering white on his left upper arm. He was dressed in a pair of long white trousers worn by two black suspenders and his well-toned stomach was not covered because he was wearing an olive-colored top that barely reached his chest. Above it lay a blue waistcoat with a kind of fur on it and his hands were in dark blue gloves that reached to his elbows.

"Sorry Sting, but we are in a bit of a hurry.", Erza now said and smiled at him apologetically, "Was Wendy here not so long ago?". Sting looked at her a bit surprised, then nodded slowly and crossed his arms.

"Yes, it was not long ago that she was here. But I have not talked to her, have only seen that she talked with Rogue and then left very quickly.", he replied, frowning slightly forehead.

Damn, then Wendy was already gone again, we were too late. Likewise, my comrades looked contrite when they heard Sting's story.

"She talked to Rogue?", Gray asked, "Where is he? We absolutely must know what the two talked about.".

Sting shrugged slightly. "I do not know what it was about. But I can lead you to Rogue. Follow me.", he said and turned around.

Silently, we followed the master of Sabertooth through a few corridors until we entered a large room, which was not so unlike the guild hall of Fairy Tail. There were also plenty of benches and tables and on one wall side was a huge, well stocked bar. Here were some members of Sabertooth, who looked at us curiously as we entered. In front of one of the front tables stood a young man as tall as Sting. That had to be this Rogue, the Shadow Dragon Slayer and half of the twin dragons of Sabertooth. Sting, the White Dragon Slayer, was the other half.

"Hey Rogue!", I heard Sting call, confirming my guess, "Look who's here!". At these words, Rogue turned and looked at us in surprise. He had pitch black, medium-length hair, which he had gathered in a small braid at the back of his head. Like Sting, he seemed to be very fit, and across his nose was a small scar, giving him a bold look.

"More fairies?", Rogue asked in surprise and as he said that, suddenly a small cat peeked out from behind him on the table. This one was much smaller and daintier than Happy and had a round face and a green fur colour. However, this could only be seen on the face of the kitten, because the entire rest of the body was in a pink suit with black dots on it. He looked a bit awkward with his graceful physique and big, friendly eyes, but at the sight of this cat only one thought crossed my mind: Gosh, this cat is cute! Never before had I found anything cute, but this kitten actually managed to soften my cold heart a little, but I tried to show it to me.

"Frosch!", Happy exclaimed happily, flew towards the little cat and embraced him stormily. Frosch actually seemed to me a fitting name for this little guy, because he really did look pretty similar to that little creature, a frog.

Gray also reached out his hand to Frosch with a smile and scratched his head, which he endured with a happy grin. Deep inside, I also wanted to reach out and stroke the little tender head of Frosch, but I forced myself not to. That was not important now. We had to find Wendy, that had priority.

"Hello Rogue. Sting told us, you had a conversation with Wendy earlier?", Natsu asked and the Shadow Dragon Slayer nodded.

"Yeah, I already wondered why she showed up here alone, not even her Charle was with her.", he said, scratching his head, "I asked about her shortly and how Fairy Tail is doing but she quickly changed the topic and then asked me about Jellal and his guild.".

"And? Could you give her some information?", Erza asked with lightly shining eyes.

"As luck would have it, we had contact with him only a few days ago, as he probably found a dark guild nearby. He should still be around here at the moment.", Rogue continued and we all got a bit more excited right away.

"And then?", Lucy asked, thus voicing all our thoughts.

"Well, I asked her what she wanted from him and she just said that she's looking for a dangerous mage. That sounded a bit strange to me, of course, but I figured she'd know what she was doing. After all, she is also a powerful mage.", Rogue explained, "And while she was telling me that, three of our newcomers came to us who had overheard what we had talked about.".

I frowned in amazement. Where did that lead now?

"Right! They then left the guild together with Wendy.", Sting added and I stared at him in horror.

"What?", I asked a bit gruffly. Perhaps it was not bad when Wendy was in company, but somehow my instinct told me that it was not wise to immediately take some strangers from another guild.

"Yes. The three of them agreed to help Wendy and then four of them started pretty fast.", Rogue said a bit irritated by my tone.

"And who are these three new ones?", Erza asked, who also had a worried expression.

"Oh, they are all right. Have been with us for a week or two and are actually just sitting around in threes. Therefore, it surprised us a bit that they wanted to join Wendy.", Sting explained and crossed his arms.

"Who exactly are these guys?", I asked him a bit irritated. I had to know in whose company Wendy was.

"Calm down.", Sting told me, looking at me a little strangely, "One guy is pretty strong and is pretty popular with everyone. That's Reiner. Bertholt is rather a quiet guy, but also quite ok. The third is Annie, a pretty quiet and serious girl, who sometimes makes us wonder if she can even laugh.".

At his last words, Natsu and Gray gave me meaningful glances. Apparently they wondered the same about me, but I just scowled at them. Immediately they turned away from me again. Idiots, I thought, snorting. So Wendy now was with these three people, Reiner, Berthold and Annie, but somehow that did not really calmed me. Why were these three, who were usually among themselves, so willing to go with Wendy? Something was wrong with them.

"And where did they go then?", I asked further and actually managed not to sound so irritated.

"Well, I told Wendy that Jellal's guild is probably still in a forest near here.", Rogue said, looking at us, " There we met with him and there he will probably be now. I explained how she got there and she left with the other three.".

"Then we have to get there as fast as we can!", Lucy said firmly, putting her hands on her hips.

"We will guide you.", Sting said in a strong voice and I looked at him in surprise.

"Thanks to you two.", Natsu said with a big grin on his face and Sting replied it. The two seemed to be quite similar in many ways, I realized as I looked at them. The same carefree grin, the same fiery eyes.

Rogue nodded now. "No problem. We like to help Fairy Tail.", he said.

"Frosch thinks so too!", suddenly the little green kitten called with a bright, delicate voice and stretched his little arms cheerful in the air. The little Frosch seemed to get nicer with every passing minute!

"Then let us go immediately.", Erza said, but secretly she probably could not wait to see her Jellal again. But I too welcomed her statement because time was our biggest opponent in this race. Together with Sting, Lector, Rogue and Frosch, we left the Guild and set off to the nearby forest to continue our search for Wendy.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter XVII

It was amazing how purposefully we were guided through the forest by Sting and Rogue, even though we had long been off the beaten path. Cross through bushes and thick roots we went deeper and deeper into the forest, which had started near the guild Sabertooth. Hope sprouted in my mind that perhaps Wendy and her companions had lost some time through the confusing way to Jellal and we might still find them there.

However, this wishful thinking vanished when we finally stepped onto a small clearing where a few people were staying. I realized at first glance that Wendy was not among them and stifled a disappointed snort.

Six heads drove around as we entered the clearing, but Sting raised his hand in greeting and grinned broadly over his face.

"It's us again. Sorry, we have to bother you again.", he exclaimed and from the group of six came out a young, tall man and took a few steps towards us. He wore dark trousers and an olive top with a strange black symbol on it. I guessed that this was the guild sign, remotely reminiscent of a magician's side view. His appearance was quite striking, he had iridescent, blue hair, which and a dark red, ornate tattoo on the right side of his face.

"Sting, Rogue.", the young man began in a deep voice, "What brings you ...". He broke off in mid-sentence when he realized who Sting and Rogue had brought with them. His brown eyes grew big as his gaze wandered over our faces and finally caught on to Erza.

"Erza.", he brought out quite surprised and I was sure that he was just trying to hide a smile. Like Erza, he seemed happy to see her, but did not want to show it so openly. What kind of weird relationship did they have?

"Hello Jellal.", she greeted him, actually allowing a faint smile.

"Hello!", suddenly a lively young woman with a long, pink braid turned on and joined this Jellal with a beaming smile.

"What are you doing here?", she asked curiously and looked at us one by one. For a moment it looked like she was looking for someone and seemed a little disappointed. Had she been expecting someone else from Fairy Tail?

"We are looking for Wendy.", Natsu answered immediately and Jellal and the woman with the pink hair looked at him in surprise.

"Wendy?", the woman asked in amazement, "She was here just now. With three other people.".

"We know that.", I said immediately, making sure not to sound too grumpy this time, "That's why we're here. We absolutely have to know where she wanted to go.".

"Who are you?", Jellal asked, who was at least a head taller than me and now looked down at me in surprise.

"Levi.", I muttered in response, forcing me to breathe calmly. My patience was once again put to the test and the more time we wereted with unnecessary talking, the less likely we were to find Wendy in time.

"Levi? I have never heard of you. Are you new to Fairy Tail?", Jellal asked now and I stared at him annoyed from below. Really? That occupied him? I'd asked him about Wendy and that idiot had nothing better to do than wonder if I was new to Fairy Tail?

"Yes, he is.", Lucy came to me quickly, before I could give a snappy answer and she gave me a warning look, "He has been a member for a few weeks now.".

Nobody is interested in this! We had to know as soon as possible where Wendy had gone and then pursue her!

"Oh, okay.", Jellal said and looked at me briefly. I scowled, desperately hoping that he would understand that I had no desire and no time for small talk.

"You can not talk to him, Jellal.", suddenly a scratchy voice threw in and a young man stepped next to Jellal. He was slim and almost as tall as Jellal. His reddish hair was just close to his shoulder and his skin was pretty tanned. His right eye was covered with a long, narrow scar, which allowed him to see with only one eye. Hands casually buried in the pockets of his dark trousers, he gave me a mocking grin as he watched me closely with one eye.

"What do you mean, Cobra?", Jellal asked, turning his head in astonishment at the young man next to him.

Confused, I frowned and looked suspiciously at the man who had just been called Cobra.

"The midget is about to explode.", he said with a sour grin, "All the while he just wants to find out where little Wendy is. So there is someone very worried about the little Fairy Tail girl.".

I furiously pressed my jaws together. That bastard had called me a midget. He will regret that. But why did he know about Wendy? I doubted that he had such a good knowledge of human nature and had drawn the right conclusions from my reactions.

"But he's not the only one, Cobra.", Gray now said and actually seemed to want to defend me. However, I still wanted to slap this one-eyed bastard for calling me a midget.

"It's important, Jellal.", Erza spoke up again and immediately Jellal's head moved to her and with a weak smile he looked at her confidingly.

"As I said, it was not so long ago that Wendy was here. She was followed by three people, a blond and a brown-haired young man and a blond woman, whom we did not know. They said they belonged to Sabertooth.", Jellal said immediately, and I snorted softly. As soon as Erza asked him for something, he talked nineteen tot he dozen!

"We already know that.", I said irritably, avoiding looking at the one-eyed guy, "But where are they going? And did she go out with the three others?".

Jellal nodded and reluctantly turned away from Erza to look at me again. "They left in a group of four. But I have to say honestly that I did not really feel good about these three people.", he began, browing slightly, "Wendy asked me for a particular guild, _Wrath_ _of_ _Kelpie_. We know this guild, but it is very powerful and cunning, so we have not had a chance to wipe it out yet.".

Sting folded his arms angrily, glaring at Jellal. "Hey.", he blamed the blue-haired, "You're talking about members of Sabertooth. What should be wrong with those guys?".

Jellal raised his arms pejoratively and stared apologetically at Sting. "I'm just saying what I think. It does not have to be true, but somehow a strange aura emanated from them.", he said.

"What's up with you, Cobra?", Erza asked, seeming to defend Jellal immediately, "Could you hear anything conspicuous in their minds?". My gaze went back to the one-eyed and I studied him appraisingly. This strange guy was able to hear thoughts? It had never happened to me, but that explained why he had known earlier that my patience had come to an end. But he only shook his head and refused to speak again.

My eyes went back to Jellal and instinctively I took a step towards him. "Could you also tell her where this guild is?", I asked tense and looked at him. I ignored the fact that these three companions of Wendy had seemed strange to him at once.

He nodded again. "At least we have a guess where the headquarter of this guild is. According to our research, it is possible that the guild is located in the mountains north of the city of Shirotsume.", he replied and I frowned a bit. That was not a really accurate location but at least better than nothing.

"Not very meaningful.", Gray commented, scratching his head a bit disappointed. The others nodded their agreement, but Jellal crossed his arms and shrugged.

"Dark guilds do not settle in easily accessible and familiar locations.", he said. Wow, I almost would not have found it myself, I thought cynically and looked at my comrades.

"Then our next destination is this mountain range.", I said determined to the round. They all nodded, even though Erza looked a little sad for a moment. She was probably disappointed that she could not spend more time with her lover.

"Do you need help with that?", Sting asked now, but I immediately shook my head. We were already more than enough people. A few more and we would be too noticeable. The others, while not altogether averse to the suggestion, preferred to shut up when they saw my scowl and shake of my head.

After a few short words we said goodbye also quickly from the others and made our way to the next train station. My comrades had all seemed a little disappointed when we had left the others in the clearing, but we had to hurry. Every second was precious.

So we sat down on a train that took us to the small town of Shirotsume and from there we walked directly to the mountains, which towered in the north of the city.

"It's good that we have to tug through the country so fast.", Natsu said as we walked and I looked at him questioningly from the side, "Since we could find the guild of this Kenny and himself faster than we thought.".

I snorted and looked straight back. "Do you really think we'll meet Kenny there, Natsu?", I asked and he looked at me with his head tilted.

"Well that's his guild, isn't it?", Natsu asked a little stupidly.

"Of course it's his guild, but he knows we're after him. Do you really think this guy would be so stupid and then head back to where we would first look for him?", I snarled.

"But if that's the case, then why are we even going to the guild?", he continued, "Sure, we want to get Wendy, but that we will go to _Wrath_ _of_ _Kelpie_ was already fixed before her disappearance.". He really did not seem to be the quickest in thinking, I thought grudgingly.

"To gather information.", Erza intervened and I looked at her briefly. It was good that I did not seem to be the only one here who was able to use his brain.

"Well, okay.", Natsu now said and crossed his hands behind the back of his head.

"But is that also clear to Wendy?", Lucy asked behind me and my eyes darkened immediately.

"I'm not sure.", I grumbled, "This brat is probably just about to run blindly into ruin. Because in this guild, there are certainly similar brutal guys like Kenny. So no matter if she first finds Kenny or his guild, she's still in mortal danger.".

Or did I underestimate Wendy again? Maybe she had been smart enough not to approach this guild at first? However, she had been stupid enough to go on her own and take three strangers with her. But no matter who she would meet in this guild, they would not be very canny with her.

We walked along a narrow mountain trail for a while, which seemed to be almost the only path in this landscape. Between barren stone and sturdy pine forests, we dived deeper and deeper into the mountains, until we finally asked Happy and Charle to look for the guild from the air. Even Natsu strained his Dragon Slayer's sense of smell and together with the two flying cats, we actually managed after a while to make out a dark complex of buildings in the middle of one of the numerous pine forests. A narrow trail that was barely visible to the eye led us to a large, dark wooden building, which perfectly matched the color of its surroundings and was thus very unobtrusive. The roof was completely overgrown with dark moss and the building had hardly any windows, so it was probably completely dark at night and therefore almost invisible.

At some distance from the guild, we hid behind an embankment and discussed our approach. While glancing at the dark building for a moment, I was a bit surprised that we had found this guild so easily. However, not everyone had two flying cats with them, who could see the building from above, I thought shortly before turning to my comrades, who remained in a crouched position in front of me.

"Is Wendy already here?", Lucy asked quietly and she looked around, as if she expected Wendy to jump out from behind a bush.

Natsu shrugged beside her. "Hard to say. I can not smell her anywhere. Either that means she's already in the building, or she has not been here yet.", he said and I frowned. If we had really overtaken them, we would have had to meet Wendy at some point in the mountains. There was, as far as I could see, only this one mountain trail leading into this barren landscape, so we should have met. Because I doubted that she and her three companions in search of this guild would just run aimlessly through the thicket. And again the thought came to my mind that something was totally wrong here. And somehow I could not shake the feeling that these three strange companions of Wendy had something to do with it.

"Well, we can only say with certainty that Wendy is here, if we check the guild.", Erza said and glanced over to the large wooden building.

"But we can barely walk in and shout aloud for Wendy.", Gray said legitimately and Lucy and Erza nodded thoughtfully.

"I'll go in alone.", I said straightaway, immediately gaining uncomprehending glances from my comrades, "You're waiting out here for my sign and behaving perfectly calmly.". At the end of my sentence, I especially gave Natsu keen glances and he crossed his arms slightly offended.

"Are you nuts?", Erza commented and scowled at me, "We will not let you go in there alone.". I easily stood her eyes and snorted very briefly.

"I'll pretend I want to become a member of their guild. Nobody knows me, maybe they've heard of you before and besides, I can act more freely on my own.", I tried to wipe away their misgivings. Erza chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip and I could see that she did not like the plan very much, but apparently she could not find any counterarguments.

I could formally see that the others were also not necessarily convinced of this idea. However, we did not have time to think of an alternative, so I stood up and hid my guild badge on my right wrist with a simple spell.

"Be careful, Levi.", Erza told me as I walked past her and I stopped briefly. She looked at me with big worried eyes, but I only nodded.

"Wait here.", I said, not really addressing her, "If Wendy's in there, I'll come back with her.".

With these words I left my comrades and still felt their eyes on my back as I approached the dark wooden building in front of me. Of course, I was also aware that this plan was not the best, but we were running out of time. Just the idea that Wendy was surrounded by dodgy guys in there almost drove me crazy, so I could not do anything but enter that guild.

The dark oak door, just like the roof, was overgrown with moss and made a very dirty impression. Disgusted, I grimaced and wrinkled my nose. How did the guildmembers keep it?

Reluctantly, I put my hand on the uncleaned doorknob and squeezed it weakly. With a soft squeak, the door opened and I stepped inside the building. A slightly musty smell received me and I wrinkled even more the nose. Looking around in the low, dark room I had entered, all I had was one need: come back with a bucket and a mop and clean this place thoroughly. Maybe I would be able to sneak into the guild by letting myself be hired as a cleaner. It would be necessary anyway.

But I tried not to pursue this urge and walked slowly to a large door behind which I could hear soft murmur of voices and the clatter of dishes. Strange that they did not seem to have guardsmen, I thought with a frown as I opened the door and looked into a low but long room full of people. At several round wooden tables some magicians sat and drank from cups or played cards. A large chandelier hung from the ceiling, illuminating the room so that you could see well enough. Countless heads shot up and stared at me in surprise when I suddenly stood in the open door. But of course there was no Wendy to see here.

The cleaning condition in this room is unfortunately not better, I still found with a sigh, when already a big, beefy guy showed up in front of me and scowled at me.

"Hey kid! What are you doing here? How did you come here?", he asked immediately in a deep and menacing voice. He was almost twice as wide as I was, but I was not intimidated and just crossed my arms in annoyance as I stared hatefully into his eyes.

"I want to become a member of your guild.", I growled at him and put my darkest expression on. After all, I had to look like a dodgy guy trying to join a dark guild. Then the guy in front of me laughed dirty and gasping and turned to his comrades.

"Hey did you hear that? This weakling actually wants to join our guild.", he roared with laughter and some of his comrades joined in his laughter. I narrowed my eyes angrily and snorted. Damn bastard, I thought, but I tried to stay calm.

"You know, stripling, we are kelpies. Strong and mischievous water demons in a proud horse form who eat their prey mercilessly. You're just a small, rickety pony. So you better leave before you get between our hooves.", he said to me with a wicked grin on his lips.

I made my hands into fists and felt my muscles tremble with tension. That bastard! What did he actually think he was? As if he would be superior to me! Without much thought, I let out my fist and punched him head-on into the pit of his stomach. Surprised by this spontaneous attack, he gasped aloud and instinctively twisted. As he did so, I whirled around and with a lithe and powerful kick drew his feet off the floor so that he landed hard on his back on the floor. Before he knew what was happening to him, I had already summoned a sharp dagger and held it to his throat. The cool metal squeezed lightly against his soft skin and even if I put a little pressure on it, I would ram the dagger directly into his throat.

"How was that, old mare?", I growled softly as I leaned over him and stared into his wide-open eyes. The room was now silent, only the breath of the man below me was heard, who still did not seem to realize that he had just been struck down by me.

"What the shit?", another one joined in and only now it came to my mind that this action might not have been the wisest. But I just could not stand the insults of this bastard.

"Finish him!", I heard another one call and looked up in alarm. Many of the people at the tables had now risen and faced me ready to fight. So I had probably acted a little too hasty, I blamed myself. I had done exactly what always bothered me most with Natsu.

"What's the noise?", suddenly a dark, deep voice penetrated the room and all those present automatically turned to the voice. A tall person entered the room from one of the back doors and stood right under the chandelier, his arms on his hips.

"Well, well.", the person now said and my eyes widened with astonishment, for the voice and the appearance of this person seemed familiar to me. A dark-haired man stood there grinning faintly as his eyes pierced mine.

"I would not have expected you here, Levi.", he said now but I could have said the same thing about him.

"Nile?", I asked incredulously.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter XVIII

 _"I'm_ _boooored.", Isabel said as she lay on the green grass, all fours outstretched,_ _staring into the blue sky._

 _"You should get a hobby.", Furlan commented, who sat cross-legged beside her and carved on a stick._ _It had been one of our free days and the fine weather had us_ _lured outside._ _Now we were in one of the sprawling green spaces in front of Erwin Smith's estate, enjoying the warmth and the sun._

 _"Yeah, great idea.", Isabel said sarcastically, looking at Furlan, as if he had gone mad, "_ _Should I start knitting or what?"._ _Furlan then chuckled softly and shrugged._

 _"Knitting has a calming effect._ _Then maybe you would be a bit more balanced and would not be so irritable.", he teased her, whereupon she suddenly straightened up and glared at him._

 _"What_ _does_ _that mean?", she_ _snapped, "Do you find me so moody?"._ _The irony of her reaction did not really strike her self, I thought with a raised eyebrow as I watched my two friends drive each other mad again._

 _"No!_ _Not at all!", Furlan answered immediately with too obvious_ _irony, so that even the sometimes rather obtuse Isabel had to notice._ _As expected, her cheeks turned red, which was always the case when she was upset about something._

 _"You stupid!", she scolded, "If you have a problem with me, then say it directly."._

 _"We have been with each other for so long._ _At some point I stopped complaining about you.", he replied with a cheeky grin._ _He was probably planning to be strangled by her here and now, I thought, for provoking Isabel so was suicide._

 _"You think yourself the most clever, right?", she scolded, glaring at him angrily._ _Already she was about to get up and rush on Furlan._

 _"Stop that shit,_ _nuisances._ _", I grumbled, throwing a small stone at Isabel's head._ _Puzzled that I was interfering, she stopped her motion and looked at me._

 _"But he started.", she said now insulted and I rolled my eyes and scowled at her._

 _"You behave like children.", I just said and stepped next to the two who were still crouching in the grass._ _As I came to a halt beside them, Isabel got up and looked at me slightly frustrated._

 _"Say that to the dumbass.", she complained_ _and nodded to Furlan, who was still grinning stupidly, "He always strives to irritate me."._

 _I looked at her with raised eyebrows and sometimes felt with them like a father, trying to mediate between his two_ _quarreling_ _children._ _It was incomprehensible that they were bickering so often, because actually we all knew that we could never really be angry with each other for a long time._

 _"And you idiot always go back to it.", I held out to her and looked at her with a slightly annoyed look._

 _"Hey!_ _That's not true!", she whisked again immediately and built up in front of me, as good as possible._ _But since Isabel was one of the few people actually smaller than me, I could look down on her contemptuously._ _Just before she could beat me with her fist half playfully, half seriously, I simply reached out a hand and pressed it against her forehead._ _I kept her at arm's length and since I was much stronger than her, she could not reach me anymore._

 _"Man!_ _That's unfair!", she complained and fidgeted, but did not really match my firm grip._ _Furlan laughed loudly behind her and seemed to find the sight of both of us very amusing._

 _"Stop laughing so stupid, you ...", she continued to rant when she was suddenly interrupted by another voice._

 _"I'm sorry to interrupt you at whatever it is you are doing there, but I hav a small_ _question.", suddenly reported a strange voice and amazed I turned around, but I still would not let Isabel go._ _Behind me stood a tall man with thin, black hair and a rather sparse beard that graced his upper lip and chin._ _Everything about him looked rather narrow and from dark, somewhat bored-looking eyes, he looked at us now somewhat irritated._

 _Who is this?_ _This question immediately crossed my mind, because normally I knew the people who went out and in here to Erwin Smith._

 _"What is it?", Furlan asked_ _in a not exactly polite ton._

 _"This is Erwin Smith's estate, isn't it?", the man asked, looking at Furlan, who was still sitting calmly in the grass._

 _"That's right.", he replied, puzzling his head._ _As I stared at the strange man, I wondered why he even left a beard if it was so sparse anyway._

 _"Well._ _And is he also present?", he asked further and Furlan and I threw ourselves briefly questioning looks._

 _"No idea._ _Probably. We're not his secretary._ _So how would we know that?", Furlan said and the man raised one of his narrow eyebrows._

 _"But you're working for him, aren't you?", he spoke now as he half turned again._

 _"Uh ... yes.", Furlan replied irritated._

 _"Then it's good.", the man said only mysteriously and threw a last look to the three of us and then headed purposefully toward the property._ _Silently, we watched him, a bit puzzled, until he had disappeared through the heavy door into the building._ _Then Isabel burst into loud laughter and only then did I realize that I still had her in my grip._ _While she was holding her stomach with laughter, I released her and looked at her questioningly._

 _"What was that?", she laughed and also Furlan_ _slowly joined in her laughter._ _Granted, his appearance had actually been a bit strange._

 _"He looked_ _like a goat_ _with this_ _thin_ _little beard.", Isabel laughed on and did not seem to stop with it._

 _Yes, this comparison was quite fitting, I agreed in my thoughts while I still shook my head over my two crazy friends._

That had been my first encounter with Nile. Between Furlan, Isabel and me, he had been from then on only the "goat man". As it turned out later, he had been there that day to make some deals with Erwin, for he, too, had been a businessman, though not nearly as successful and well-known as Erwin. But that did not explain why that "goat man", Nile Dawk, was standing here in a dark magician's guild. I did not even know he was a magician too. What had caused him to give up business and join a dark guild?

"You know that bastard?", one of the men asked stunned and looked at Nile, who grinned at me slightly. He still looked the same as he had then, not even the condition of his beard had changed.

"Let's say I know him fleetingly.", Nile said and walked slowly in front of me. Quickly I let my dagger disappear and went down from the muscleman under me to watch Nile carefully.

"What are you doing here?", I asked him, taking a step away from the man I had just thrown to the ground.

"Counter question: What are _you_ doing here in my guild?", Nile asked me and all eyes in the room rested on me. I stared at him perplexed. His guild? Did he want to tell me that he was the master of this dark guild? That became more and more strange.

"The guy said he wants to join. And then he attacked one of us.", one of the men explained and Niles grin became a little more smug.

"Yeah, he's always been like that.", he said and turned around, "Come with me, Levi. I think we have a lot to talk about.".

For a moment I stood rigid and watched him while everyone else looked at me rather scowling. Then I slowly started to walk and followed Nile through the door he had just come from. We walked in silence along a narrow corridor until we entered a room with a few pieces of furniture in it.

Nile motioned for me to sit on a small, dark blue sofa while seated in an armchair across from me.

I felt a little out of place as I sat down on the soft fabric and crossed my legs. However, my plan so far seemed to be going quite well, although I would not have expected that I would know the master of this guild. With quick hand movements, Nile reached for a glass bottle and then poured a dark orange liquid into two low glasses and handed me one of those. Carefully, I grabbed it and smelt briefly on the drink. A stinging smell of alcohol stung my nostrils, but the sweet-and-bitter fragrance immediately told me I was holding a glass of whiskey in my hand. I did not expect that there was such a thing in such a remote place. But I waited suspiciously until Nile had drunk a drink from his glass before sipping the whiskey. You could never be too careful, at least poison could have been in the drink.

As I felt the harsh burning of the alcohol in my throat, Nile leaned back and looked at me.

"So, Levi. You're suddenly stumbling into my guild after all this time. I really would not have expected that.", he began.

"And I did not think you were a master of a dark guild now.", I countered, not taking my eyes off him, "Since when are you even a magician?".

He laughed briefly. "I've always been, just hiding it pretty damn good. Apparently so good that even you did not notice.", he answered and looked at the wall behind me for a moment, "But you know, Levi. I was sick of business at some point. I was tired of it and when I met a group of magicians, we finally formed this guild.".

Still, it was very strange to me that it was a dark mage guild. Even though he might have been a weird guy, I still considered him an honest man, so I wondered a bit about that. But I was not allowed to think about it too much, otherwise he would end up suspicious. I had to stay in my role and find out if he knew anything about Wendy.

"I felt the same way.", I said, sipping the whiskey again. I had nothing against this drink, but a cup of black tea would have been much better. Nile laughed briefly again.

"Enough of Erwin?", he asked and looked at me again and I simply nodded.

"Yeah ... the guy can be a bit tiring in the long run sometimes.", he continued, without waiting form e to say anything else, "He has always been like that.".

I briefly raised an eyebrow. "Do you know him for so long?", I asked, never taking my eyes off him.

Nile nodded and took a long sip from his whiske. "When we both finished school, we started in the same company. We were both young and full of energy. At that time, we were still pursuing the plan to start our own company together one day.", he chatted and I listened attentively, because I actually had not known all that.

"What made you decide differently?", I asked. It certainly was not wrong to let him talk for a while and ask him slowly and unobtrusively about Wendy. An almost sad smile crossed his face.

"That which destroys a male friendship in most cases.", he answered a little melancholy, "A woman.".

Erwin and women? That was something new even to me. I had only met him as the aloof and perfectly-performing businessman he was today and somehow could not really imagine that he was actually interested in women.

"We both fell in love with the same girl. Marie.", he babbled on and drank hard on his whiskey, "And when she finally decided on me, Erwin and I separated more and more from each other until we both finally went separate ways.".

How heartbreaking, I thought cynically and tried to look interested, but slowly I was tired of this ramblings. I had to slowly steer the issue at Wendy and Kenny.

"So you're probably better off now anyway.", I said, looking at him intently, "And now you're a guild master after all. Not bad.".

A slightly smug grin crossed his face as I uttered those words. So he seemed very proud of this fact.

"And you also have a good place. It's not often that people get lost here, right?", I asked, although perhaps this approach was almost too obvious. But I guessed Nile naively enough that he would not notice it right away. For a moment he looked at me in surprise, then shrugged.

"Actually not at all. In all the years that the Guild has been here, we haven't had any uninvited visitors here.", he answered and sounded almost like a proud father talking about his child.

Somewhat challenging, I raised an eyebrow. "Really? Not from any other magicians who wanted to harm your guild?", I kept asking, trying to make it look like I did not immediately believe that statement.

Nile laughed briefly and winked at me. "Not even those annoying magicians from the official guilds. Nobody will find us here.", he continued and I unobtrusively inhaled. After all, that were good news that Wendy did not show up here. But still remained the question of where she was then. Had she found Kenny before? It would not be stupid to ask Nile at the same time about Kenny.

"Not bad.", I tried to ingratiate myself further and then cleared my throat, "Tell me Nile, a certain Kenny is also a member of this guild, right?".

Nile stopped in his motion and looked at me searchingly. For a few seconds there was silence in the room until he slightly tilted his head and nodded.

"That's true. But he is currently on an mission. Although he should have been back by now, but he'll know what he's doing.", he chatted instantly and I was beginning to wonder that he was so talkative to me. We had not known each other so well in the past, but right now that was right for me.

I nodded a little disappointed. And it was strange that Kenny should have been here long ago. What stopped him for so long? Did we actually wound him so badly that he barely managed to return to his guild on his own? Or had he and Wendy really met again?

"Why are you asking about that?", Nile asked me and for a moment I caught a glimpse of him. In times of need, I answered what seemed to me to be the most meaningful and plausible lie.

"I ... I'm looking for him because ...", I said, lowering my voice, " ... because I found out that Kenny is my dad.".

Nile choked on his whiskey and coughed. Then he looked at me wide-eyed and I already wondered if this white lie might have been a bit too much. Would he even believe me so easily? After all, theoretically anyone could say something like that.

"Well ... actually I could have noticed that before.", he finally replied to my surprise and shrugged, "You have the same dark and intimidating visage.".

I forced myself to show no reaction to this insult. Who had a dark visage, you damned goat man? In my thoughts, I threw him some nasty insults to the head, but remained outwardly calm, because actually it was only to my benefit that he had fallen so easily on this white lie.

"But are not you a bit too old to bet on a good father-son relationship now?", he asked carefree and I gritted my teeth. Was he especially interested in insulting me subliminally? Did he think I was that old? He should rather be quiet, because he was finally several years older than me! If anyone was thinking about aging here, it was him.

As good as I could, though, I swallowed my anger and looked straight into his eyes.

"It's never too late for something like that, Nile.", I replied, but internally everything in me resisted this statement. What crap am I talking about? As if I were the character in some shabby, snappy novel.

"Are you becoming sentimental in old age, or what?", Nile asled now with a grin and angrily, I stretched the hand, which did not hold the whiskey glass, into a fist. As if I were already an old, frail guy! This miserable bastard probably thought he was the youth himself.

"Stop that stupid talk.", I said to him now, as I could not stand to endure these taunts silently, "You'd better help me to find him.".

Nile seemed at least pleased with this whole dad story. Maybe that would help me ask him about Kenny unobtrusively.

"Like I said, he's on a mission right now.", Nile answered and poured some more whiskey. How much and above all how fast did he drink? Cana would certainly like him.

"Can you tell me anything else?", I continued to drill down and put my now empty glass on a small table next to the sofa. A fleeting grin crossed Nile's face and from no longer sober eyes he looked at me now.

"Well, I'll tell you that just because I want to know what face Kenny makes when he finds out he has a son like you.", he said now and I held my breath tight. It all seemed a little easier than I thought.

"And do not tell anyone. Kenny only entrusted that to me and that's the way it should stay. He discovered a small cave a bit away from here in this forest and now he always uses it as a shelter when he needs some distance from everything. Maybe you are lucky and he has gone there.".

"Where exactly is this cave?", I asked. Maybe Kenny had just gone to this place and maybe Wendy was there too?

"It's actually pretty easy to find. If you just follow the creek near the guild north, you'll find it.", he replied immediately and by now I was pretty sure it was the alcohol that made him into such a chatty state. That, or he was really more stupid than I had supposed. But that was our chance, we had finally taken a step forward! Although I initially said that I wanted to join this guild, I quickly jumped up and walked to the door.

"Thank you, Nile.", I said to him as I walked, "I'll come back later. This has priority now.".

"Uh, what? But wait a minute, Levi!", he shouted after me, but then I had already left the room. It might have been a bit reckless of me to just walk out of here, but with Nile's simplicity, I had completely new possibilities.

As fast as I could, I crossed the corridor and the great hall where all of the men were still staring rather hostilely at me, but nobody seemed to dare to come near me. Apparently, they were intimidated by the fact that their master knew me. Who would have thought that I would actually have such luck?

Without a word, I left the guild and was quite happy to be able to finally leave this filthy place behind me. Now it was time to hurry up and let the others know about this new information, because it was possible that Kenny and Wendy were really close by here.

I almost ran back to the hiding place of my comrades. If Kenny had already met little Wendy, it could be too late any second.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter XIX

"Do you think Wendy is at this cave?", Natsu asked behind me as we fought our way through the undergrowth.

Just after I got out of the guild _Wrath_ _of_ _Kelpie_ , I had returned to my comrades. They had all been quite surprised that I had come back so quickly and I had instantly inaugurated them in all the details I had learned. However, I had taken care not to tell them about my white lie, because then Lucy would certainly have started to annoy me with questions.

The creek, Nile had mentioned, actually flowed very close to the guild building, so we followed it north. Lucy had summoned one of her Celestial spirits who had shown us the direction. However, I thought we could have done it without this weird guy who looked like a hyperactive, red penguin with a compass on his head. But Lucy seemed to have been very excited about this Celestial spirit.

"Honestly, I hope she's not there.", Erza said in front of me. She had taken the lead and we all ran in a long row right behind her. As if she were a mother duck and we were her chicks. The creek flowed quietly next to us and a few birds bobbed up and down the shore and did not seem to be disturbed by us.

Thoughtfully, I agreed with Erza. It would really be the worst case if Wendy was in Kenny's cave. It would be a stroke of luck if we only met Kenny. Then we still would not have the slightest idea where Wendy actually was, but then we could ask him about her and arrest him. After all, he still had to be injured from our fight, and as a result he was no longer a major threat.

"But if she is not there, where is she then?", Gray said behind me. Well, we all would like to know that. And I was still bothered by the question of what these three characters who accompanied Wendy were all about. Reiner, Bertholt and Annie. They had to have a specific reason to support Wendy in her search.

It took a while, but finally we found a cave entrance under a ledge. It was overgrown with scrub and bushes, but Erza had discovered the cave immediately. I had to admit that I was a bit surprised that we could find this hiding place so easily. Secretly, I was worried that Nile had not told me the truth.

"Be careful.", I whispered to my comrades as we peered cautiously into the darkness of the cave, "We do not know what is in there.". With these words we sneaked close to each other into the interior of the cave. We crossed a dark and slightly damp, stone corridor. The daylight behind us was getting weaker, so our view was immensely limited. The smell of light mildew and damp moss rose to my nose and immediately I realized that here was almost the same level of cleanliness as in the guild _Wrath of Kelpie_.

Our footsteps echoed dully on the stone walls and we barely dared to breathe, fearing to make loud noises. However, we had to give up our camouflage after a short time, because it was now pitch dark and we could hardly recognize our own feet. To see at least something, Natsu gave us a little light with his fire. Since we were now much easier to discover, we now had to be more careful. However, my instinct somehow told me that Kenny, if he were actually here, would surely have noticed us long ago.

After a short time the corridor became wider and in the pale light of the fire we could see a large cave room, in which also some pieces of furniture stood. It had to be Kenny's shelter here. As it remained dark and calm, he was obviously not here.

"There's nobody here.", Lucy whispered behind me and I rolled my eyes slightly. Did she always have to pronounce the obvious? I paused to look around for a moment, but that had apparently been too abrupt for Lucy, who was walking right behind me. With a short surprised squeak she ran directly against my back. I shot her a scowl over my shoulder, but I was not sure she could even see it.

"Sorry.", she whispered as I looked ahead again. Natsu had now found a few torches that were in a holder in the wall and ignited these, so we had a better view.

In fact, we were in a low cave room with a bed in a corner. Next to it stood a wooden table with two chairs and besides I could discover two wide chests. Apart from the torch mounts that had been knocked into the wall, there was no other interior. Typical Kenny, I thought immediately. As pragmatic and sporadic as possible.

Erza sighed softly and put her hands on her hips as she stepped into the middle of the room and looked around. "Well ... that was probably a flop.", she commented on our situation, but secretly I was a little relieved. I had expected that we would find a fully resolved and severely injured Wendy here. I wanted to tell myself it was a good sign, even if she was not here.

"Look around anyway. Maybe we'll find something interesting.", I instructed the others. However, there was so little interior design here that searching would probably not take very long.

"Gray, you go back to the entrance and let us know if someone is approaching from outside.", I also commanded, as the others were about to swarm out to investigate the cave. I heard Gray snorting briefly because he did not seem to be very enthusiastic about this task, but wordlessly he turned around and disappeared down the corridor through which we had come. While Natsu and Lucy took a closer look at the bed, Charle and Happy searched the walls more closely. Erza and I immediately headed straight for the two chests and each of us took one.

With a creaking sound, I opened the lid of the chest in front of me. It was not very tall and did not have much content. I saw some daggers and knives and some clothes underneath. Even though I was not very comfortable, I reached out carefully and rummaged a little in the chest. And as I suspected, there was something under the garments. With a few quick movements, I pulled a few sheets of paper out of the chest and studied them carefully. These were a few letters that were not that old, according to the postmark. The oldest had a stamp of about four weeks, just before the raids on the branches of Erwin had begun. As I briefly scanned the first few letters, my eyes grew bigger and bigger. In fact, we finally seemed to have found concrete evidence!

"I've discovered something interesting here.", I said to the others who immediately stepped behing me and looked over my shoulder, "These are letters from Kenny's client. In most there are instructions for the kidnappings, which have already been carried out and detailed instructions what he had to do.".

"And who is this ominous client?", Lucy asked tensely behind me, but I just sighed a little contrite.

"That is unfortunately still unclear. The letters are always signed with a _"M."_ at the end.", I answered. But a single letter was better than nothing. And with those letters, after all, we also had solid evidence that Kenny was really behind the kidnappings. But who exactly was M.?

"Are there any other useful information in these letters?", Erza asked pragmatically at once and I looked again at the papers in my hands.

"Actually, yes.", I began, hearing my comrades stop in suspense, "Here are three places where he always received his next instructions when he was done with a job.".

"Really?", Natsu burst out, leaning on my left shoulder from behind. I diligently ignored this gesture, though I did not approve of it. But for arguing was not the right time.

"Is Kenny in one of these places to receive new orders?" ,Erza voiced her thoughts aloud and inwardly I agreed with her. A similar thought had crossed my mind as well.

"I think that might be the case.", I mumbled as I continued to scan the letters and then suddenly falter, "But this is not just about places, it's also about specific dates for the meetings.".

"Really? That's great.", Erza said immediately and now also looked inquisitive at the letters in my hands, "What exactly is listed there?".

"The next meeting is in two days.", I told the others. I almost felt like we finally got lucky. If we had arrived here only one or two days later, this information would have been completely pointless for us.

"Perfect!", Natsu shouted again, "Then we just have to wait for this guy to get over there. Where exactly do we have to go?".

"There's a little problem.", I answered him, "Although there is an exact date, but not at which of these three places this meeting is to take place.".

Erza thoughtfully put her hand to her chin and crumpled her brow slightly. "It is certain that at one of these three places the meeting will be in two days I think we should split up so that each one of us is at each of these venues. It may not be the best solution, but better than gambling and ending up in the wrong place.", she said matter-of-factly and we all nodded weakly.

Erza was right. Splitting up was certainly not the best solution, but so we were sure we could find Kenny again. Suddenly it seemed far too easy and too simple for us to get Kenny, almost too good to be true. But I tried to push my pessimistic thoughts of me first.

Carefully, I folded the letters together and stowed them under my shirt. We were not allowed to leave this evidence here, because it could still be important for us.

"I think so, too.", I said now, taking a step forward to put some distance between myself and my comrades who had almost crawled on my neck. Then I turned around to look at them and they all looked determinedly at me.

Then we left the cave and told Gray, who was outside, about our new findings and how we wanted to proceed. The letters had spoken of three places. One of these places was nearby, the other two were a few hours away by train, which meant we had to leave immediately. Together we left the mountain forest and made our way back to Shirotsume. There we divided into three groups. Natsu and Happy took over a location, Erza and Lucy traveled to the one furthest from our current location, and Gray, Charle, and I would monitor the meeting place that was very close by. Although I had not been overly enthusiastic about this division, for some reason Charle had insisted on being with me in a group.

After we split up, the three of us went to one of the places from the letters. Our meeting place was in a small village called Trost, just west of Shirotsume. As it only took one or two hours to get there on foot, we lay down at the parting of the ways in the forest in front of the village. Because this parting of the ways had been stated in the letters as a precise meeting place. And there we stayed patiently, until the day after tomorrow, until the time when the meeting was to take place.

"Someone is coming.", Charle whispered between Gray and me. Luckily, the parting oft he ways was right next to some large rocks and boulders that provided a very suitable hiding place for us. Now we peered side by side on this previously deserted place and in fact someone approached from a distance. However, there were clearly two people moving there and I realized immediately that neither of them could be Kenny, because I would recognize his stature among hundreds of people.

But now the question arose: who were these persons there? Simple hikers who came here by chance just now? Or someone with whom we had not expected? Anyway, we stayed in our hiding place and waited with growing impatience, until the two people came slowly closer. When they were not far away from us, we were able to understand individual bits of conversation and see exactly how they looked.

The left person was a petite, young woman who at first seemed even smaller than me. She had tousled, blonde hair and an angular face, but what immediately caught my eye was her showy hooked nose and her bored eyes. Somewhat bleak, almost defiant, she looked around while she listened to her companion. Beside her was a tall and slender young man with short, dark hair. Unlike the woman next to him, he looked more cautious and seemed to pay much attention to his surroundings.

Confused, I frowned and looked at the two suspicious. The whole time this place had been deserted and just now two people appeared here? That could not be a coincidence. But who exactly were these two there?

"Is this really the right way, Bertholt?", the blond woman grumbled now and the man next to her nodded and gave her a quick look.

"Annie.", he answered with a careful voice, "There is no other way leading here. So it has to be the right one.".

The blood froze in my veins, when I heard, with which name the two had just spoken and my whole body stiffened. With the names Annie and Bertholt.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter XX

Annie and Bertholt, these two were among the three persons who had accompanied Wendy. I had a bad feeling about it from the beginning, and now that they were showing up here without Wendy, it just confirmed my suspicions.

Everything in me immediately struggled to jump up and attack these two there. I wanted to know where Wendy was, what they had done to her! And why did they come here so calmly for a long walk? And what did those two actually do in a place where we had actually supposed to meet Kenny? Was there a connection?

I felt my muscles cramp at once, but I was forced to rest inwardly. I must not lose my head now and just rush on them, because that would have been very unwise.

"There's someone else coming.", Gray whispered very quietly and alarmed my head shot in the opposite direction of Annie and Bertholt. From a forest road there came actually a third person. Was that this Reiner? This third person, however, seemed eager to hide the appearance, for this human wore a long, dark brown coat that blurred any body contours. The fact that this person also wore a wide hat, which was drawn deep in the person's face, made it impossible to tell whether this human was a woman or a man. However, I could almost be sure that this was definitely not Kenny, because he would not have completely masked himself.

Right at the parting of the ways, the ominous person and Annie and Bertholt met each other and stopped. With lowered voices they started to talk and unfortunately so quietly that we could not understand it anymore.

After nodding, the person handed the man named Bertholt a light brown envelope, which he immediately stowed away. Shortly thereafter, the masked person made already back around and walked back into the forest, while Annie and Bertholt were gazing silently.

For a moment, I wondered if we should split so that we could spy on the unknown, but it would be stupid if we were to divide this already rather small group even further. Besides, we would certainly learn more about Wendy if we listened to these two here.

"Now that that's done, we can indeed return to Reiner.", Bertholt muttered now. The blond woman next to him nodded and without another word they turned almost synchronously around and walked the way back they just had come.

"Where Reiner is, is certainly also Wendy.", I hissed to Charle and Gray, who nodded immediately, "We must pursue them, but under no circumstances they mustn't notice us.".

We gave them a little head start before venturing out of hiding and running after them as inconspicuously as possible. Since we were still in the forest, the trees offered us pretty good shelter and luckily they did not even turn around. They were probably too sure they were alone here.

After a while, the two started talking again, even though most of the time the man took over speaking and the little blonde often grunted in agreement or dropped a few words.

"Say, after all this effort, do we have to go back to this annoying guild?", Annie asked at some point and seemed to want to give up her silence.

Bertholt shook his head. "No, you know he said we should go back to him then.", he answered and I frowned.

Who was _he_? Maybe even this M. from Kenny's letters? The fact that we had met those two at this place finally suggested that there was some connection between them and Kenny. But I just could not explain what that should be.

"It was about time!.", Annie mumbled mischievously, "They were all out of their minds. Talking about friendship and camaraderie and all the shit all the time ...". I heard Bertholt sigh softly and it seemed he was already used to such comments.

"Such things were preached to us in training, too. Or did you forget all that?", he asked softly, actually risking a shy smile. What kind of training was he talking about?

I saw how Annie, with her bleak eyes, acknowledged him for a moment, then looked back at the path ahead. "Of course not. But in the end, anyway, everyone thinks about their own well-being. That's the way people are. And I do not like people who pretend to be in a perfect world all the time.", she said bored and Bertholt sighed softly.

"Our predecessors told us again and again that it is not always good to act individually.", he actually tried to continue to convert her a bit and did not seem to notice that this was obviously a hopeless task.

At that, Annie just snorted contemptuously. "Yes, they have. But then this incident happened to them at Shiganshina.", she said uninspiring, "Because their whole comradeship did not help them either.".

I froze completely in my motion as I heard this one word from her mouth and felt how my heart stopped. An icy chill ran down my spine, while I could just stand there like a statue and stare stupidly at Annie and Bertholt. Shiganshina. The place where my heart had burst into a thousand shards, the place where the only good thing in my life had gone. What the hell did those two know about Shiganshina? And what exactly did she mean by "this incident at Shiganshina"? I could only think of one incident that ever happened at Shiganshina, and that had been hell on earth for me.

But how did it happen that they knew about that time? This whole mission seemed to be getting more and more complicated and impenetrable. And at the moment I was not quite sure how I should understand it, that these two there, and this Reiner probably, were somehow in connection with the incident at Shiganshina some years ago.

"Levi?", I heard Charles's voice barely audible whispering behind me and that freed me from my numbness. Without looking at her, I walked on slowly so we did not have too much of a gap between Annie and Bertholt. Nevertheless, I could not completely banish the tormenting questions and thoughts from my head.

We followed them unnoticed for a while through the forest, which seemed to be endless. After a felt eternity, they left the narrow way and walked cross-country. And indeed after a while they reached a small campsite with three tents in the middle of the dense forest. In the middle of these tents, the remains of a small campfire were visible and a few backpacks lay around it.

At a safe distance, we looked again for a good hiding place and peered intently at the campsite. In between the tents was actually a third person, whom Annie and Bertholt now stepped forward.

This person was a young man with short blond hair and an angular face adorned by a bright stubbly beard. His body just seemed to be full of strength and energy and he received the other two with folded arms.

"Welcome back.", the blond man said in a deep voice and gave the two a fleeting grin, "Did you enjoy your togetherness?".

"Shut up, Reiner.", Annie mumbled in her bored tone. So this man was really that Reiner, I thought, gritting my teeth. So it was clear that these three were certainly the ones who had accompanied Wendy. But where was she then? What did these bastards do to Wendy?

"We have received the new instruction. That means that we can leave here soon.", Bertholt tried to change the topic, even if he still seemed a little embarrassed by Reiner's comment.

Reiner got serious again and nodded. "All right," he said and then turned to one of the tents, "I 'll take another look at the brat.". At these words, we all listened up and stared surprised at Reiner. Brat? Did he mean ...?

"Oh man, what should we do with this blue-haired girl? After all, it was not planned for us to capture her.", Annie grumbled and my heart jumped excitedly in my chest. Wendy was here! Wendy was alive! Even though we had not seen her, I was very relieved, because I had already expected that she would be dead!

"We have to get rid of her. Maybe on the way ...", Bertholt replied, but he did not seem to be able to express the end of the sentence, but I could still vividly imagine what exactly he meant by that. These bastards actually intended to kill Wendy! Lucky we had found her now!

"At least the stupid brat made it pretty easy for us.", Annie said untouched, "How can one be so careless as to take three strangers with you?".

Everything in me was boiling with rage and the only thing I wanted to do right now was ramming my daggers into the flesh of those three bastards. Just the thought that they had done something to Wendy made me furious and only with the utmost effort I could stop myself from storming at them in rage.

"Wendy is here. She's actually here ", Charle next to me whispered whiny and smiled happily.

"Thank god she's still alive.", Gray agreed softly, then looked at me intently, "What do you think, Levi, what do we do now?". It surprised me a bit that he actually asked me what we should do. Actually, I had expected that, like Natsu, he would just rush on the campsite.

"Actually, we are the same number of people, but a direct attack would still be too risky.", I began. Internally, I also added that I did not see Charle as a very helpful support. I just could not accept a cat on two legs as capable fighter, but if I had told her that directly, she would have scratched my eyes out. And by our magic we were not at an advantage, because I clearly felt that these three also had a strong magical power.

"Besides, we do not know what magic they 're using and that could be fatal to us in such a surprise attack. We must try to get Wendy out of there without a fight, so we will not have any losses.", I explained and they listened intently, "We should wait until night.". And from then on, we made a plan to free Wendy and waited impatiently until it was dark and they finally went to sleep.

It was probably just before midnight when we decided that the right moment had come. Reiner and Annie had retreated to two of the tents some time ago and Bertholt had stayed out as a night watch. Now he sat cross-legged in front of the quiet crackling campfire and seemed to be fighting the fatigue, for his head kept nodding slightly, before he suddenly straightened up.

My gaze wandered to Charle, who was standing a little way behind me, behind a tree. When she also looked over to me, I nodded briefly and she nodded to tell me that she had understood. Then she rose silently into the air and began to circle above the camp. However, I did not pay any further attention to her, because I now looked over to Gray, who had positioned himself on my other side and waited tensely.

The plan was for Charle to catch Bertholt's attention, no matter how. If he walked away from the one tent we thought Wendy was in, Gray would slip into that tent and get Wendy out of there. I should watch everything and intervene in case of emergency.

Now this plan only had to work the way we imagined it to be in theory. However, contrary to my expectations, Bertholt finally got up after Charle made some very strange noises that were almost too overblown and unnatural. I could see him frowning in confusion, cautiously pursuing the sound. At that moment, Gray came out of the darkness next to me and crept towards the tent almost silently. My eyes shifted nervously between the creeping Gray and the slightly confused Bertholt, and I hold my breath as Gray stood directly on the campsite.

Gently, Gray slipped into the tent and I squinted over to Bertholt, who now stood a bit off the campsite, looking confusedly between the trees, watching for the source of the strange sound.

A short time later, Gray actually left the tent again and my heart made a relieved jump when I saw Wendy following him out. She seemed uninjured, just looking a bit battered and lightly rubbing her wrists as she climbed out of the tent.

But right at the moment when Wendy was just leaving the tent, something happened to the neighboring tent and I stopped breathing in alarm. Gray and Wendy also stood still as a figure moved out of the tent.

"Hey Bertholt, it's time for the change of ...", Reiner said in a completely normal tone, when he suddenly realized that there was a stranger with his prisoner standing right in front of him. For a few short seconds, the three oft hem just stared at each other in stunned silence.

It was Gray who reacted first. In a flash, he spun around, grabbed Wendy by the wrist and ran as fast as he could. That was the only right thing he could do right now.

"Alarm!", Reiner shouted and Bertholt now let go of the strange sound that had caught his attention, and hurried back to Reiner. However, Reiner stormed off and pursued Wendy and Gray at a frightening tempo.

I could still see how Reiner's skin was covered with a kind of layer while running and horror rose up in me. I knew such magic and it most likely counted as a type of hardening.

With a lightning-fast phrase I jumped out of the hiding place and summoned a narrow, long sword. Only a few steps separated Reiner from Gray and Wendy and I increased my tempo even more. My body was blasted with adrenaline, because I wanted only one thing: to prevent Reiner from catching up with them.

From the corner of my eye, I could still see Reiner swinging his probably rock-hard arm to give a shot to Wendy, who was just behind Gray. But just then, I jumped into the small gap between Wendy and her pursuer and quickly tore my sword in the air.

From this sudden movement rather confused, Reiner stopped abruptly in front of me, but his arm shot up yet with menacing precision down on me. Fortunately, I had drawn my sword with which I was able to parry the attack, at least I thought so.

When Reiner's arm and my sword met, a deafening and unpleasant clinking and rattling sounded and I could scarcely believe my eyes as my sword shattered into hundreds of pieces. Was his hardening so strong that my weapons could do nothing against him? Damn, I really did not expect that.

But even though my sword had broken on his arm, it had nevertheless cushioned a little the force of his blow, so I was not hit by it. As he looked down at me, his eyes narrowed to furious slits, but I barely noticed him, for my eyes immediately shot to Wendy and Gray to see if they were alright.

These idiots had actually stopped and turned to the action behind them. For a moment, I looked into Wendy's terrified eyes and saw that she took a vague step towards me. This stupid brat!

"Run, you damn idiots!", I shouted at them and then turned back to my counterpart, who now took out a second blow. Since it was probably useless to fight him with my weapons, I renounced a counter-strike and jumped in a roll to avoid his attack. But that made me suddenly stand directly in front of Annie, who had also hurried here because of Reiner's shouts, and she did not look very kind.

"Crystal Make. Sword.", she shouted and looked at me with angry eyes. She seemed to be spitting with rage and for a moment I thought it was quite amazing that so much trouble could fit into such a small person. But the next moment she held a bluish, long sword in her hands, which was partially transparent. In a way, this sword looked beautiful, at least the moonlight reflected in it and it looked so clear and pure that it left no doubt that it was pure crystal. So she was a magician like Gray, I realized, as I was already busy evading a blow of her sword at the last moment.

But this evasion was my doom, because I could not directly pay attention to Reiner, who took advantage of this unfair situation immediately and missed me a heavy blow to my right arm. When his hard skin hit my arm it cracked quite suspiciously and I suppressed a groan of pain. Damn, against two opponents it was not so easy for me to go out of a fight without damage.

But in spite of the pain in my arm and the two dangerous fighters in front of me, I squinted back over to Wendy and Gray, who were still standing in the same place, looking over at me with wide eyes. Why did not these idiots run away?

"Bloody hell! Flee!", I yelled again to them and at least Gray broke free from the numbness. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him almost forcefully drag Wendy away, though she continued to stare towards me. But I breathed in relief, thanking Gray in thought that he was bringing Wendy with him. Otherwise she would probably still stand there and gawk over to me. And as long as I could distract these two, the Wendy and Gray had a chance to escape to safety.

But I could not think more about the two of them, because Annie already got out for the next blow, which I was just able to avoid. However, this time I avoided to the opposite direction from Reiner, so as not to have to take another painful blow.

"Blade incantation.", I screamed while I made some distance between Annie and me and conjured a new sword that was similar in size to hers. In order not to have to be on the defensive, I took a quick swing with my sword against them, but suddenly something huge rushed from above down on us and bounced with a loud, dull sound on the floor. Lightning fast, I jumped back, because otherwise I would certainly have been hit by this thing. I blinked in confusion as I realized that a huge hand was resting on the floor between me and Annie. What the hell was going on? The hand was larger than me and now separated me from my opponent, almost as if the hand would protect Annie. My head shot around and I realized with horror that this was the hand of Bertholt. He stood a few feet away from us, his left arm outstretched in our direction. At about the elbow, his forearm and hand had become abnormally large, separating Annie and me. This guy seemed to be able to enlarge his body or even parts of his body, almost as much as Master Makarov, I realized. But slowly it became really uncomfortable for me, because now there were even three opponents, against which I had to assert myself. I grittedly rubbed my right arm, which still hurt slightly. However, at least nothing seemed to be broken, because that would have definitely felt different.

All of a sudden Reiner jumped out of one side of the hand and rammed his rock-hard shoulder into my stomach in an almost superhuman speed. The pain rushed through my body like lightning and I moaned in agony again, while in my stomach everything writhes in pain. Immediately, Annie came from my other side and started another blow with her crystal sword, aiming clearly at my left arm. Despite the pain and the excitement, I was still able to avoid this dangerous blow, but I immediately realized that my situation was pretty hopeless. They barely even allowed me to breathe, so it was almost impossible for me to go on the offensive. Perfectly attuned to each other, they kept coming up with new blows and attacks that I could only dodge with great difficulty. And since they were three, I had to take more and more punches, but I did not care. Because the important thing was that Wendy and the others were safe.

By now I was panting heavily and I felt blood dribbling down my face from a wound on my forehead. My right arm still hurt pretty much and my stomach seemed to be recovering very slowly from the blow earlier. That is really bad, I thought grimly, trying hard to remember what Kenny had taught me when I was outnumbered in a fight, but for some reason, I just could not remember anything. Actually, that was not my first fight, where I had more than one opponent in front of me, but these three were really on a completely different level. They were nothing like the bumbling bandits with whom I usually dealt and their precision and power left no doubt that they were perfectly trained fighters.

Having already broken two more swords in this fight, I now conjured two daggers in my hands and tried to gain at least some time by small bites and stabs. However, this was only a stopgap, because I felt that I would not hold out against these three for much longer.

"Levi!", Wendy's shrill voice suddenly cut through the muffled fight sounds and almost as in trance my head turned to her voice. She came running exactly from the direction she had walked with Gray earlier and headed straight for us now.

Cold fear rose in me as I saw the little girl running right towards us. What was she doing there? Why was she here again? She should have been away with Gray for a long time! Here she was only in danger again, so why was she back?

"What are you doing here?", I yelled at her, ducking under Reiner's punch, "Get out of here!".

"I won't leave you here!", she screamed and as she charged at full speed she changed. Her hair, which fluttered wildly behind her, suddenly turned pink and round her ankles and wrists formed small bright feathers, which stood out pointedly on all sides. But not only that, her whole appearance seemed to change. She had just been the little girl I knew, and suddenly she radiated something warlike and repressive. Her eyes became hard and cold as she got even faster and headed straight for Reiner next to me in a single motion. She struck him with such force that even he could not stand and was pushed aside.

Surprised by this turn, Annie and Bertholt paused briefly in their movements and that was their downfall. With a single fluid motion, Wendy jumped off the ground, spinning once in the air, and at the same time punched the two so hard with her foot that they were thrown back a few paces. I just could stand there stunned and had to be careful that my jaw did not shut down in amazement. Was that really the little girl I had met? Wendy seemed to be bursting with energy and strength, and out of wild, angry eyes she was staring at her opponents.

"Sky Dragon's Roar!", she shouted so violently and determinedly, as I had never experienced before, and secretly I had to admit that I was a little impressed. Similarly powerful was this magic from her. It produced such a violent blast that I had never felt in my entire life. It was almost the size of a huge tornado, raging through the landscape. Even Wendy was pushed back slightly by the recoil, and although I was behind her obliquely, I too had to be careful that this strong draft did not outline me. However, the torrent of air hit Reiner, Bertholt and Annie with full intensity. Without even the slightest chance of cover, they were seized by the whirlwind that Wendy had created and thrown high in the air. Somewhere far away they landed among the trees and disappeared in our field of vision. I still could not quite figure out what had just happened here and just stared at Wendy stupidly.

Still fully in her element, Wendy whirled around, grabbing my wrist and pulling me in the race. Almost alone, my legs moved while I was still trying to realize what had just happened. I had never seen anything like this in my life, and I could barely comprehend that such tremendous power was slumbering in the little girl in front of me. Where did all this energy come from? As we ran, Wendy's condition gradually changed again. Her hair slowly took on its normal blue color and the small feathers on her body disappeared.

I do not know how long we just ran through the forest but slowly, my mind seemed to turn back on and I felt again the pain in my left arm and the wetness of the blood seeping from the wound on my forehead. Also, I still held the two daggers in my hands, but I still did not let them disappear. Keeping weapons in my hands always reassured me and gave me a degree of security.

After a while, Wendy paused and I heard her gasping with effort. No wonder, after all, we were also sprinting through the forest at an abnormal rate.

"Wendy! And Levi, you're there, too!", suddenly Gray shouted, who came running towards us and whose face looked white as chalk. Behind him, Charle flew and terror was written on her face.

"You were suddenly gone and we were afraid of the worst!", Gray chattered and then I concluded that Wendy apparently stormed on her own again to come back to me.

"What ... What did you think, you stupid brat?", I snapped at her because finally my breath calmed down gradually. When she turned to me, she looked at me with wide eyes and the sweat still ran from her forehead, but she said nothing.

"What the fuck? Why are you doing such a shit? Again and again, you run on your own?", I continued, taking a few menacing steps towards her. Actually, I did not want to be so dismissive and irritable to her, but finally I could tell her everything that had accumulated in me. All the anger, the wrath, the anxiety, the fear now broke out and I just could not help it. Actually, I should be even grateful to her, after all, she had saved me from a hopeless situation, but in the end, I had even got into that because she had been so careless!

"Levi, let's ...", Charle tried to interfere, but I just cut her off and paid no attention to her.

"You could be dead!", I scolded, glaring at Wendy, "We all could be dead! Have you even thought for a second about what consequences your actions could have?".

Everything around us became quiet and not even Charle and Gray dared to even move a muscle, even though this tirade did not apply to them. Wendy grew smaller and smaller in front of me as I kept talking to her.

"Do you have any idea what danger you have been in? How careless and perilous your actions were?", I kept yelling at her, "Only by damn luck we have survived this unscathed.".

And then I saw how small tears slowly formed in the edges of her eyes and then I finally fell silent. In the meantime, I had said everything that needed to be said. But somehow I now was tormented by the thought that I had made her cry and although I did not like it, a guilty conscience slowly spread through me.

But then she began to pucker her mouth into a very weak smile, which was slowly getting bigger and bigger. Without saying a word, she just looked at me kindly from her big eyes and let the tears that had formed in her eyes just run down her cheek.

"What is it?", I asked her confused, trying to sound a bit calmer, "Why are you smiling now?". For a brief moment, she just kept looking at me and I began to wonder if maybe I had harmed her soul with my rogue.

But suddenly she jumped forward and hugged me. Stormy she wrapped her thin arms around my chest and pressed herself close to me and ... laughed. She actually laughed! A bright and happy laugh! But I felt her tears continue to run down her cheek and moisten my shirt. Since I had not expected it, I stumbled briefly as she threw herself against my chest, but after only a few seconds my balance was restored. So what was that? Wendy cried and laughed at the same time on my chest and pressed herself against my body, while I just did not know what to do and how I should react to it.

"Oh, Levi.", she laughed now with tears on my chest, "I am so glad that you are fine. I've missed you so much.". And as these words came out of her mouth something moved in my heart. A feeling that I had buried deep inside of me a long time ago and that slowly made its way back to the surface.

Affection.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter XXI

What was that feeling that spread inside me? Although it might sound awkward and stupid, but somehow this feeling scared me, even if it did not feel bad. But I was generally overwhelmed with the whole situation. Why was she crying and laughing at the same time and why was she hugging me so hard? Could not she at least warn me?

For a few seconds, I just looked surprised at the laughing girl on my chest and froze completely in my motion. Then, finally, I cleared my throat and tried to push her away from me as gently as possible. But to my chagrin, I felt myself blushing slightly. No one had ever done that yet!

"Um ... it's alright.", I mumbled slightly embarrassed and Wendy luckily took a step back and looked at me beaming with joy. Satisfied, she folded her arms behind her back and seemed to have forgotten everything that I had just told her a few minutes ago.

"And...", I muttered even quieter, "Thanks.". Even if I was not comfortable with that, she had saved me from a tough situation. And though she had done some stupid things before, I felt the need to praise her for her power.

Apparently, these words surprised not only myself, but also Wendy, because shortly her smile died away and gave way to a completely astonished expression. But then her smile became even wider and she looked like she was about to fall back around my neck. To avoid such a situation, I took a few steps toward the others, making disappear the dagger in my hand.

At the same moment a small white whirlwind rushed past me and fell around Wendy's neck, almost as stormy as she herself had just done with me. Of course it was Charle, who now cried torrents of tears of joy and talked to her friend almost in disarray. Gray also seemed to wipe a small tear out of his eye and grinned happily at Wendy.

"We're really glad you're back with us, Wendy.", he said now and Charle gradually broke away from Wendy, "What exactly happened?".

"These three, Annie, Bertolt and Reiner have offered to help me and together with them we were with Jellal and asked where Kenny's guild could be. I did not fear anything bad, because these three were really nice and easy to handle. Especially Reiner. But when we set off to travel on, they suddenl handcuffed me with these magic-inhibiting handcuffs. And since then, I've been trapped in the camp from which you've freed me.", Wendy explained, occasionally glancing in my direction with a faint smile, but I just crossed my arms and tried not to show that she had really shaken something up in my cold heart.

After a few more relieved words from Gray, Wendy and Charle we also left again. Shortly after we started walking, Wendy noticed that I had been injured. Outraged that I had not said that much earlier, she just began using her magic to heal my wounds. I was quite surprised and did not even know that she had healing powers. This girl actually surprised me again and again.

So, after having no more injuries and no more pain, we headed to a village south of Shirotsume called Dauper. There we had arranged to reunite, just before we had split our group. Since it was in the middle of the night, we did not make much progress and when the sun slowly rose and dawn came, we arrived at the agreed meeting point.

The village of Dauper had only a few inhabitants, all of whom were still in their homes at that time, and the village seemed rather deserted when we entered. Erza had suggested this meeting place, since she had been there before and had told us that in the center of the village was a small inn named "The hot potato". In my opinion that was not really an imaginative name, but it was even close to a miracle that there was a tavern in this small village. And we really could not miss this tavern, because as soon as we entered the village, we already discovered a dark wooden house with large windows, on which a sign with just that name hung.

Was the tavern open anyway? After all, people did not often come here at this time, I guessed, as we walked up a few wooden steps that led to the veranda of the inn. Wendy ran ahead and gently pushed the door open. To my astonishment, the tavern seemed to have actually opened, and together we stepped into a wooden low-ceilinged room, which smelt of food very much. Some wooden tables and chairs were scattered around the room and on the left wall side was a wide bar, behind which stood several bottles. In fact, behind the bar was a rather small, young man, polishing a glass just yawning. Despite his age, he already had gray hair, which he had shaved pretty short and let his already round head appear even more spherical. When we entered, he looked up a bit tired and yet seemed quite surprised to have guests at this time.

"Oh?", he said and tried to suppress another yawn, "Good morning. Welcome to the inn "The hot potato".". Wendy hopped happily towards him and leaned against the counter.

"Hello. Can I have something to drink? I'm really thirsty!", she chatted happily and slowly we came closer as well. At close range, the man seemed even smaller than me and with a faint smile he put a large glass of water to Wendy.

While Wendy drank greedily, I looked around the host room. No one else was here except us, but I noticed that there was a staircase leading to an upper floor. Did they have guest rooms there as well?

"Hey Sasha!", the young man suddenly shouted and my eyes darted back to him, "Come on! We have guests.". After just a few seconds we heard fast footsteps on the wooden floor and at the next moment a young woman came storming down the stairs. With a big smile she stopped in front of us and crossed her arms behind her back.

"What a surprise!", the young woman exclaimed joyfully, "Welcome to our tavern!". She had long brown hair that she tied into a braid and wore a simple, light brown fabric dress. Her round face and awkward-looking manner made her look a bit childish, but apparently she was sharing the inn with the young man.

"My name is Sasha and that's Connie.", she introduced herself and her smile did not seem to disappear anymore.

"Hello. My name is Gray.", Gray answered her immediately, "Say, are there any other guests except us?".

Somewhat puzzled by this question, Sasha cocked her head, but nodded. "Yes, there are. They arrived here last night. Two young women, one blonde and one redhead.", she explained.

"That's Erza and Lucy! They are already here!", Charle exclaimed happily and I was relieved that at least these two were already here.

"Oh, you know each other? Well, they rented a room upstairs. Should I get them for you?", Sasha asked helpfully and Gray and Wendy eagerly nodded. As a result, Sasha disappeared up the stairs again as we sat down at one of the wooden tables to wait for Erza and Lucy.

It took a while until a door was opened upstairs, because they were probably still sleeping. As soon as Erza and Lucy had entered the stairs, they already spotted Wendy and came running to us with loud shouts of joy. I frowned in annoyance. Why did they always have to be so loud?

Of course, they were extremely relieved to see Wendy well and we quickly exchanged our experiences. Erza reported that no one had come to their place and they had been just sitting around all the time, without anything conspicuous happening. Also we told about Reiner, Annie and Bertholt and my suspicion that they had to be in any connection with Kenny.

When Gray had finished describing our experiences, Erza crossed her arms thoughtfully and looked around. "Well, we could not find out that much, but that does not matter. The main thing is that we have Wendy back with us. And now we should just wait for Natsu and Happy. Maybe these two have something interesting to report.", she said and we others agreed silently.

Next to me Wendy tried in vain to suppress another wide yawn and I looked at her now a little worried. "You are still growing. You should rest and sleep. Too less sleep is detrimental to development.", I commented on her yawn and she turned her head to me.

"You're the one who hardly sleeps.", she immediately noticed, "I even think I have never seen you sleeping.". Cheeky kid! My sleeping habits were just not up for debate here. I snorted and raised an eyebrow in annoyance.

"I am an adult, you sassy brat.", I grumbled to her, "That's something different. But you should use the time to sleep.".

"You're right.", she agreed, yawning and nodding. Beside her, Charle and Gray also looked pretty exhausted and calmer. Although I noticed the efforts and the fatigue of last night, I was pretty good with it. My body was used to little sleep.

"Wake me up when Natsu and Happy arrive.", Wendy mumbled next to me before placing her arms on the table and resting her head on top of it. To doze more convenient, she moved her chair closer to me and leaned her upper body against mine. This girl really seemed to like to keep body contact, I thought grudgingly, but I just let it happen, because it did not really bother me.

It took only a few minutes, then Wendy already seemed fallen asleep and breathed very quietly and evenly. I looked at her sleeping, peaceful face and could not help but notice how cute she looked when she slept. There it was again, that feeling, which I had felt when she suddenly hugged me. That inner warmth and contentment that I suddenly felt when I just looked at her. Not so long ago, her mere sight had caused me mental anguish and now such a thing? I did not understand myself anymore, but somehow I realized more and more that Wendy's presence seemed to me to be doing well in a certain way.

"Hey, hey, Levi.", Lucy's snarling voice ripped me out of my thoughts and reluctantly I looked at the two young women seated across the table from me. They looked at me slightly smirking and childish Lucy wagged her eyebrows.

"Do we have to worry about something?", she asked, "Because the way you look at Wendy ... I did not know that you have such a taste in women.".

I felt the urge to kick her in the face so that her stupid grin disappeared from it. How immature and silly could one still behave? I snorted in response and gave her an icy look.

"Shall I deface your face?", I growled annoyed, "Keep your stupid comments to yourself, blondie.". In fact, her stupid grin died down a bit and shocked she looked to Erza. And I had chosen nice words! But I did not pay attention to the two women anymore, I only heard them talking softly while I looked again at the sleeping girl next to me.

What a stupid thought! Did that stupid cow really think I had romantic feelings for Wendy? I was at least twice her age! It was obvious that Lucy was probably not very developed mentally if she immediately thought of something like that.

Still I could not deny that there were any feelings in me for this little, blue-haired girl, but I could not really assign them yet. They felt similar to those of Isabel and Furlan, but something was different. Something felt completely different and I would have given almost anything to figure out what it all meant to me.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter XXII

I heard a soft, dull giggle, almost like a chuckle. Who was giggling? If it was Lucy again, who wanted to make any stupid comments, I would really kick her in the face this time.

And while I thought this, I realized that I had closed my eyes. Was I finally dozing off? Gradually, I remembered watching Wendy sleeping, and that at some point my eyelids had become more and more heavier. From then on, my memory stopped.

I slowly opened my eyes and found myself in a semi-upright position, head to one side leaning on anything soft under me. As I slowly straightened up, I realized what the soft thing had been, Wendy's head. Was I actually dozing off and leaning against her the way she had with me? Slowly I got scared that I would become too soft, because such gestures and actions did not look very similar to me.

Still a bit drowsy, I turned my head and looked straight into Happy's smirking face, holding his paws over his mouth so as not to laugh out loud. Was the stupid cat laughing about me?

"Stop giggling so stupid.", I growled at him and after a few more chuckles he actually fell silent. He had probably come to the realization that he should not irritate me. But the blue cat sitting on the table here in front of me also meant that Natsu was back.

Carefully, I stretched a little to be more awake and looked at my surroundings. Erza and Lucy still sat facing me, but next to Lucy, Natsu was actually there. On the other side was Gray, who was awake in the meantime and quietly they were talking and Wendy was dozing next to me still peacefully. How long had the two been here or how long had I slept at all?

Slightly too rough as intended, I nudged Wendy with my elbow so she woke up. After all, we could not sleep all day but had to continue to work on our mission. Frightened by my gentle thrust, Wendy flinched and her head shot up. While she looked around disoriented, Natsu's eyes wandered to her and he grinned at her broadly.

"Ah, Wendy, you woke up.", he said, "By the way, good to see you again.". Slowly, Wendy returned to reality and nodded to him a little dazed and rubbed her sleepy eyes. Even by doing that she looked incredibly cute! Damn, could not she stop looking so cute? And why did I think that so often lately?

"There's news.", Erza said bluntly. Apparently they had all waited until all of us were awake again. Natsu and Happy nodded in agreement.

"Right. After Happy and I had waited a while, a single person actually turned up at our place. She covered her face so we could not see much and she looked like she was waiting for someone, but no one appeared.", Natsu began with his narrative.

"And then we overpowered and interrogated the person!", Happy declared proudly, though I doubted he'd played an active role in the action. Probably Natsu had just rushed on this person and had taken this by surprise.

But Natsu nodded proudly tpp and grinned even wider. "Exactly. It was a young, dark-haired woman and we were able to hear from her that she was supposed to meet Kenny and give him new instructions.", he said and I was again scrutinized. If Kenny himself could not come to a meeting of his client, then he actually seemed to be struggling with the aftermath of our fight. Where the hell was this guy?

"And this woman was the client?", Lucy asked, but Natsu immediately shook his head.

"No, she was just a middleman. However, we were able to learn a little more about the right client from her.", he continued and everyone at the table immediately got a bit more excited.

"Really?", Erza asked in a loud voice, "Who is it?".

"Kenny was hired by a corporation to initiate all these abductions. And the boss of this group should have the name Marley. But even we could not get more out of her.", Natsu continued as I crossed my arms thoughtfully.

A corporation, or better said, the head of a corporation had hired Kenny to harm Erwin? But why exactly? To eliminate the competition? But you did not have to hire a dark guild right away. I was almost sure that there was still more behind this whole thing.

"Where is this woman now?", I asked, looking at Natsu. His gaze wandered to me and from innocent eyes he looked at me.

"Well, we thought about bringing her to you, but while we discussed it, she was able to escape.", he admitted a little sheepishly and I rolled my eyes annoyed. And I had already assumed that these two were able to act independently, but I was probably wrong.

"That was careless of you.", Erza scolded him immediately and frowned slightly annoyed.

"I've never heard of a certain Marley.", Lucy interjected, almost making it seem like she was trying to change the subject so Erza could not slander Natsu any further.

"Me neither.", I said thoughtfully, "But I'm sure that name will be known by Erwin. We should first return to him and let him know about these new facts.".

It was actually annoying that Natsu had not taken this woman, because I was sure that I could have got some information out of her. Because my methods of interrogation certainly differed enormously from those of Natsu and Happy. But at least we finally knew who was the mastermind behind all these kidnappings and that was a big step forward.

But still, the odd feeling crept into my mind that I had heard the name Marley somewhere before.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter XXIII

In front of me, Lucy and Gray were talking excitedly about swimwear and meanwhile I was so annoyed by the _bikini_ or _beach pattern_. I also wondered how they had even come to this topic because the sun did not even shine.

After we had been briefly in the inn "The hot potato", we had already left this place again. Of course, Sasha and Connie had still tried to encourage us to stay, but we had finally a mission to fulfill. Now we were on our way to the next train station, which was a long walk away from us. At the top were Erza, Happy and Natsu, followed by Gray and Lucy, who, as I said, were talking very excitedly, and the end of our group was Wendy, Charle and me. From the beginning, I had taken the last position in our formation and with a big smile Wendy had just joined me.

In the meantime, I did not refuse it when she was looking for my closeness, but still I found it a bit odd. And besides that meant that I also had to endure Charles's presence, since the two were as good as inseparable. But secretly, and to my great astonishment, my heart had made a small jump when Wendy had almost automatically stood next to me and smiled at me in a friendly manner. Of course, I just gave her a cold look, because I was not even sure if I was really able to look friendly at all. But deep inside I had felt a certain joy, I could not deny that.

"Levi?", Wendy asked a little shyly after a while in which we had just walked in silence. I turned my head questioningly in her direction and looked down at her. A faint smile played around her lips as she pressed her index fingers together. Most of the time, she made that gesture when she was a little nervous or upset, and I wondered what she wanted me to ask now.

"What is it, brat?", I muttered as usual, but Wendy did not seem to be aware of this unfriendly tone.

"Are you still angry? I mean because of my stupid action and all ... ", she said a little meekly and I raised an eyebrow in astonishment. It had been a while since I scolded her for that and only now did she ask me if I was still angry about it?

Behind her, I could just see Charle, who was giving me menacing looks, almost as if she wanted to tell me: _Watch out what you are saying!_ Annoying cat, did she always have to play Wendy's guardian? As if she did not even trust me to have a conversation with Wendy without her crying in a minute or something like that.

A brief, quiet sigh escaped me and with a slightly reproachful look I looked at the girl. "No, I'm not.", I replied grumpily and conjured her a satisfied smile on her face. But it really was the truth, because I had talked all the anger and rage off of my soul when I reprimanded her, and after that this whole topib was done for me. Even if it really was an extremely stupid and ill-considered action, I had to keep telling myself that she was just a kid after all. A very strong and talented, but still a child, in whose head stupid thoughts emerged. I probably would have done quite stupid actions at her age, if my childhood had been normal. But where I had lived, every stupid act was like death.

"Really? Oh, I'm really happy.", she said and grinned happily, as only a young girl could do it. I turned away from her again, assuming the conversation was over, but she plucked at the sleeve of my shirt to get my attention again.

"You know, Levi.", she began cautiously, as my gaze returned to her, "I ... I really wanted to do this for you.". With these words, I looked at her a little dark and immediately her smile was slightly muted.

"You already said that. But why are you talking such a nonsense?", I said and could not really quite explain why she wanted to do something daring for me. Because she wanted to see me happy, she had said, but somehow I could not quite believe it.

"That's no nonsense.", she said, slightly offended, "I'm serious. I ... I was just wondering what it would look like if you would smile.". With each word she became quieter and I clearly saw her face turned slightly red.

"But ... why?", I asked only confused and already felt the sharp glances of Charle on me, because I had made Wendy blushing. It was not even my fault! This cat was really stupid.

"Well, you always look so grim and sometimes even a little sad. You have such a beautiful face.", she babbled nervously and held her hand over her mouth at the end of her sentence, as if she had not wanted to say that. I puzzled my head. So this little one thought that I had a pretty face? What exactly was she trying to say to me?

"I mean that a smile on your face would certainly look even better.", she mumbled, giving me a timid, shy smile. She is really serious, I thought in surprise, not knowing exactly how to handle it. Somehow it flattered me that she thought so and that she was thinking about something like that, but actually that was not necessary. She should not care if a bitter guy like me was smiling or not. And at the same time, I felt like I was blushing too and hated myself for it. This girl really managed to turn all my feelings upside down. I hated it when I was uncomfortable and did not know how to handle it. So, as always, when something like this happened, I tried to play it down somehow.

"You are really stupid.", I said a bit awkwardly and almost automatically, I raised my hand and ruffled her briefly through the blue hair. The same movement I've always done with Isabel, and for the first time I did not find it bad to do that.

Wendy's hair felt soft and fluffy as I let my fingers slide through it and then pulled my hand back. Under my touch, her eyes only briefly became big, then she had to grin slightly and giggled softly. She almost looked like a contented kitten, whose head was scratched. It was sort of a cute and harmonious sight to see her like this and I felt the pain evaporating further and further in the thought of Isabel.

"I know.", she giggled in response, "But we all are like this.". Well, I could not contradict her and I threw a snorting look at Natsu, before I turned to Wendy again. And although the subject was a little embarrassing and uncomfortable for me, a question still burned on my soul.

"Say, Wendy. Why are you ... so fixated on me?", I asked and looked at her attentively. She returned my gaze and cocked her head briefly.

"Well ... I do not know exactly why I was able to immediately have confidence to you.", she replied, looking at me honest.

"You should break this habit very soon.", I murmured and only thought of her meeting with Reiner, Annie and Bertholt. She seemed to understand the allusion immediately and glanced guiltily to the ground and nodded weakly. Then she looked up again and the smile returned to her face.

"I can not really describe it, but somehow I knew immediately that you are a good person.", she continued to answer my question and spontaneously I snorted sarcastically. If I told her how many people I had killed, she would certainly think again of that statement. In my eyes I was not a good person, I was just someone who tried to survive, no matter how. But I should not say that to a little girl, in the end I would scare her again.

"Your smell also told me that.", she added, and I crumpled my brow in confusion.

"My smell?", I asked in astonishment and could not really figure it out. Although I now knew that Dragon Slayers had an extremely sensitive and delicate nose, but that said nothing about my own smell. What exactly did she mean by that? Now she was a little red in the face again and grinned me timidly, almost apologetically.

"Well, that may sound a little weird, but ... you smell a bit like my dragon mother Grandine.", she said softly and I could not help but stare at her as if she had just grown a third arm. I should smell like an old dragon? Should I take that as a compliment or rather not? And did I smell good or bad? Wendy really sometimes said strange things.

"So, I smell like a bunch of old shed with teeth?", I grumbled without much thought, but I should not have said that. Immediately, Wendy's eyes narrowed to angry slots and she thrust her hands on her hips.

"Be careful what you say.", she said to me mortified, "Grandine was not an old _bunch of_ _shed._ She was the loveliest and best mother imaginable and has done everything for me.". I could hear clearly that her voice was beginning to break and felt that soon tears would form in her eyes. Immediately I felt guilty again and looked down at her. Despite all the strength that lay dormant within her and despite what she had already experienced, she was just a young girl. And her dragon mother was apparently a touchy subject, but I could understand her only too well. After all, I also hated it when someone spoke to me about Furlan or Isabel. When she looked directly at me, she must have seen the guilty conscience and the regret in my eyes, because she actually began to smile weakly and nudged me gently.

"You're really stupid, Levi.", she giggled now and slowly found the strength in her voice again, "I am trying to compliment you and you just say something mean like that.".

I snorted dismissively. "Tch ... That should have been a compliment?" I grumbled nervously because I did not know what to say.

"Grandine smelled wonderful.", Wendy told me, sounding a bit sad but still smiling, "And you smell a lot like her, albeit in another wonderful way. A little flowery, just like mountain herbs.".

Mountain herbs. I smelled like mountain herbs? Somehow that did not really sound like me, but I thought I should not disagree with the sense of smell of a Dragon Slayer.

"And it's totally soothing and nice for me to have someone around me who smells almost like Grandine. She always gave me a sense of security. And I just know that you have a good heart and can give me the same feeling, Levi. ", she now said to me with her happy smile and I just sighed softly and resignedly. I simply could not compete with this girl and her cute charm.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter XXIV

After a long walk and an equally long train ride, we finally reached the estate of Erwin Smith. I wondered how he would react if we would mention the name _Marley_. Would he react in surprise or would he have expected such a thing? Actually, it would be typical for him, at least already had a premonition in this regard, because I knew no man who was far-sighted, as Erwin Smith.

As Wendy chattered next to me about what was her favorite food, we approached Erwin's estate. From a distance it looked just like at the time, as we had left it, but soon as we entered the property, immediately a bad feeling flared in me. I could not quite explain it, but I was a little worried and watchful.

"It's kind of quiet, is not it?", Wendy suddenly said next to me, who seemed to be thinking similar thoughts. Once again I was astonished how attentive she could be.

"Too quiet.", I mumbled and my eyes darkened. Although it had never been really loud on Erwin's estate, you could still feel that many people had been busy here. There had always been footsteps or soft voices heard somewhere, a person here and there coming through a door, or some employees takeing their break outside. Noticing nothing of this outside the building was quite unusual and that was what worried me. Was he planning a rest day just today? However, this reasoning seemed too naive to me and I had learned that one should always assume the worst immediately. Therefore, I immediately suspected that we were already too late and this _Marley_ was already here.

"Something's not right here.", I hissed at the others who had apparently noticed nothing and now looked at me surprised.

"Huh?", Natsu remarked, "Why?". I forced myself not to turn my eyes annoyed.

"Here it is too quiet, idiot.", I muttered in response.

"Since when do you reject the silence?", Natsu commented my concerns, grinning cheekily, "Otherwise you would prefer it, if we are silent and suddenly you are scared of silence?". I felt the anger billowing in my throat and made a concerted effort to inhale and exhale quietly, otherwise I would have jumped at the throat of this pink-haired bastard.

"Levi knows better here." ,Erza interjected and I saw that she went on alert, "We should trust his judgment.". At least one who could use her mind, I thought as I tried not to get any further upset about Natsu's stupidity.

Now more cautious and watchful, we headed for the building, which was now more and more deserted. Why was it so quiet here and why did I have the feeling that not a single soul was in this house? Maybe it had already come to a fight, I suspected. However , I could not really imagine that Erwin Smith was so easy to drive out of here or even defeat. That would not look like him. Maybe there was a simple explanation for the ghostly silence on the estate, but somehow I could not really convince myself of it. Inwardly, I already assumed that we would encounter Erwin's dead body in the house and the very thought of it almost turned my stomach. Even though I had not seen him for so many years and have had no contact with him at this time, he was still an important person in my life. When I had worked here, we had built trust and respect for each other and thus a close relationship was established. Of course I would never admit that to him and I would not call Erwin Smith a friend right away, but I could not deny that he had played and still plays an important role for me.

As if we were burglars, we kept on sneaking, anxious to be as quiet as possible. Finally, we stood in front of the large front door and when Erza carefully pressed against it, it actually opened. This only reinforced my uneasy feeling and almost automatically I summoned two elongated daggers in my hands.

As quietly as possible we entered the huge building, but after only a few steps we stopped in the entrance hall. Also, here in the house it was almost dead quiet and a cold shower ran down my spine. The last time I had seen the house so quietly had been the day the news of Isabel's and Furlan's death had been announced. No one had dared to speak a single word that day, and they had all looked at me with great compassionate eyes. _Poor guy_ , they had all thought and cold rage had crept up in me, for I hated pity. But the current silence was different, not oppressive or full of grief, but threatening and ominous. At the latest here, an employee of Erwin would have had to meet us, but it was as if we had entered a haunted house.

Damn, I thought bitterly, apparently we were actually too late. Slowly, Erza now turned to us and look at us worried. "Something is not right here," she whispered .

"Maybe we should look in the office?", Gray said quietly and with a nod Erza turned around and walked towards the office of Erwin. In a row, we all followed her. Although Wendy had wanted to go at the end of our row, I had wordlessly shoved her in front of me. It would be reckless to let her go last and if we were ambushed I could protect her better if I walked behind her. Quietly and cautiously, we crept through the property and with every step we took, the fear of being discovered grew.

However, I had to admit that I was actually surprised that Erza still knew the exact route to Erwin's office. Determinedly she crossed several corridors until we were only a few steps away from the office door. However, I doubted that we would find anyone there. At most, Erwin's dead body or Hanji's and I was not sure if I wanted to see that.

As we kept getting closer to the door, I suddenly heard a telltale, wooden crack right behind me, and all the alarm bells inside me began to shrill. Reflexive, I drove around and that was not a second too late.

In a dark niche between two wide, wooden closets, a person had hidden, who now rushed at me with almost superhuman speed. Since she attacked me directly from behind, I had little room to react, but probably I owed it to my many years of life on the streets that I could still react in time. I could avoid a weapon by a hairbreadth and if I had not avoided, this sword would now stuck in my shoulder. My eyes shot to the person who was holding the sword and I saw a young one woman. She had short black hair, a petite face, and remarkably narrow eyes that I'd never seen before. Despite her rather feminine face, her body looked very muscular and powerful, but I could not think of anything else because she was already preparing for the next attack.

"There's somebody!", I heard Lucy screaming behind me, who now ahad also discovered the woman, but at the same moment I had to dodge another sword thrust, which I just barely managed again. I felt the breeze of the sword on my arm and was startled by the cold precision. As fast as I could, I threw up my daggers and started a counter-attack, but the woman was able to dodge my blow perfectly and also took out another blows.

It was like we were doing a macabre dance. One took off, the other one parried and vice versa. Neither of us could score in that short time, and the speed and strength of the young woman became more and more suspicious to me. I had never faced a person who could handle my reflexes and my speed, but for this woman it all seemed easy.

"Levi!", Wendy screamed almost hysterically behind me and no sooner had she called my name, the woman froze in front of me and looked at me in amazement. Confused by this reaction, I paused for a moment, not knowing exactly what was happening. It was as if Wendy had frozen her with her voice, but it was obvious that the woman had voluntarily stopped her attacks. But why?

"You are Levi?", she asked in a melodic voice, piercing her eyes into mine.


End file.
